Real estate stock selection and attribute preferences

The majority of studies that explore property portfolio construction and management strategies utilise highly aggregated ex-post data, but stock selection is known to be a significant determinant of portfolio performance. Thus, here we look at stock selection, focusing on the choices faced by investors, necessitating the collection and analysis of primary data, carried out utilising conjoint analysis. This represents a new step in property research, with the data collection undertaken using a simulation exercise. This enables fund managers to make hypothetical purchase decisions, viewing properties comprising a realistic bundle of attributes and making complex contemporaneous trade-offs between attributes, subject to their stated market and economic forecasts and sector specialism. In total 51 fund managers were surveyed, producing 918 purchase decisions for analysis, with additional data collected regarding fund and personal characteristics. The results reveal that ‘fixed’ property characteristics (location and obsolescence) are dominant in the decision-making process, over and above ‘manageable’ tenant and lease characteristics which can be explicitly included within models of probabilities of income variation. This reveals investors are making ex-ante risk judgements and are considering post acquisition risk management strategies. The study also reveals that behavioural factors affect acquisition decisions

Prejudice

This activity - Prejudice - is designed to expose students\u27 explicit prejudices. This activity should help students understand that everyone holds prejudices and to launch a discussion about the source of prejudice – especially ways to reduce it. Often, superordinate goals are a great way to bring together disparate groups, so the class does spend time talking about goals that may unite humanity. This activity uses a worksheet, “Acceptability of Prejudice,” from http://breakingprejudice.org/teaching/group-activities/acceptability-of-prejudice.html The worksheet was adapted by Mary Kite and Elizabeth Tobin from a 2002 article by Crandell, Eshleman, and O’Brien

Secondary Data Analysis Project

This activity is designed to give students an opportunity to apply what they have learned in statistics to a real dataset. This activity will help students apply what they have learned in statistics to real world data and answer their own research questions. Students will also practice reporting their results in a paper using APA format

Quantitative Jeopardy Feud

This activity - Quantitative Jeopardy Feud - is a method for using a game as a final exam

Origin of non-keplerian motions of masers in NGC 1068

We demonstrate that the ``sub-keplerian'' rotation curve of maser spots in NGC 1068 can be explained by the gravitational attraction of the disc orbiting the central black hole. Possible parameters matching observations are: black hole mass of 12 million solar masses, disc outer edge > 1.3 pc, aspect ratio in the range 0.003 to 0.3, surface density varying approximately as 1/R, and disc mass of about 9.4 million solar masses. The physical conditions required for the excitation of masers are fulfilled, and the outer disc would stand in a gravitationally marginally stable state.Comment: 4 pages; accepted in A&A Letter

An investigation of internal ion number density and electron temperature profiles in a laboratory-model Hall thruster

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/76158/1/AIAA-2000-3422-584.pd

Reducing instrumentation errors caused by circumferential flow field variations in multi-stage axial compressors

Abstract The effects of blade row interactions on stator-mounted instrumentation in axial compressors are investigated using unsteady numerical calculations. The test compressor is an 8-stage machine representative of an aero-engine core compressor. For the unsteady calculations, a 180deg sector (half-annulus) model of the compressor is used. It is shown that the time-mean flow field in the stator leading edge planes is circumferentially non-uniform. The circumferential variations in stagnation pressure and stagnation temperature respectively reach 4.2% and 1.1% of the local mean. Using spatial wave number analysis, the incoming wakes from the upstream stator rows are identified as the dominant source of the circumferential variations in the front and middle of the compressor, while towards the rear of the compressor, the upstream influence of the eight struts in the exit duct becomes dominant. Based on three circumferential probes, the sampling errors for stagnation pressure and stagnation temperature are calculated as a function of the probe locations. Optimization of the probe locations shows that the sampling error can be reduced by up to 77% by circumferentially redistributing the individual probes. The reductions in the sampling errors translate to reductions in the uncertainties of the overall compressor efficiency and inlet flow capacity by up to 50%. Recognizing that data from large-scale unsteady calculations is rarely available in the instrumentation phase for a new test rig or engine, a method for approximating the circumferential variations with single harmonics is presented. The construction of the harmonics is based solely on the knowledge of the number of stators in each row and a small number of equi-spaced probes. It is shown how excursions in the sampling error are reduced by increasing the number of circumferential probes.Industry funde

Considerations on the role of the Hall current in a laboratory-model thruster

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/76645/1/AIAA-2001-3507-148.pd