The Privatisation of a National Project:

The settlements along the Trans-Israel Highway illustrate the privatisation of the national settlement enterprise. To understand this process, this dissertation focuses on the settlement production mechanism, which consists of the reciprocal interests of the government and various private groups to develop and domesticate the border area between the State of Israel and the occupied West-Bank -  the Green-Line. Centring on the spatial privileges the state granted to diverse spatial agents, this dissertation examines the manner in which different favoured groups were given the power to colonise, plan, develop and market space as a means to enhance the state’s power over it. Investigating the gradual transformation of this production mechanism, this dissertation explores the increasing privatisation of the local economy and culture, as well as how this was manifested in the built environment. Examining the modifications in the architectural and urban products this mechanism produced, this dissertation analyses the materialisation of the privatised national settlement project and how it transformed together with the changing political and economic interests

The Privatisation of a National Project

In Israel, the development of new settlements is a leading national project. This began in the turn of the 20th century as national Zionist organisations established new frontier settlements in Palestine, in the efforts to secure the territory needed for a future state and to encourage a spiritual national renaissance. With its establishment in 1948, the young state of Israel took over the process, continuing the pre-state settlement endeavours of securing spatial control while endorsing a new unified national identity. Accordingly, the state promoted, directed, and executed the construction of a series of rural and industrial settlements that corresponded with the national geopolitical agenda and the hegemonic socialisation policy. Consequently, the architectural and urban features of these settlements were parallel to the ruling political, economic and social values and were thus characterised by reproduced homogeneous and economical residential environments. During the 1970s, the monolithic state-led development began to transform with the growing privatisation of the Israeli economy. These transformations reached a point of no return with the election of the first liberal and anti-socialist government in 1977; eventually turning into a national consensus. At the same time, the state did not abandon its geopolitical agenda and the attempts of securing spatial control through settlement. Nevertheless, it began dismantling its monopoly over the establishment of new localities, granting selected group spatial privileges and thus turning them into spatial agents that develop the frontier on its behalf. Initially, the privatisation of the national settlement project began with ex-urban and suburban communities, serving favoured societal groups. Eventually, with the growing involvement of private capital, it turned into a large-scale corporate-led development venture, dictated by financial interests while fulfilling geopolitical objectives. Privatisation, neoliberalism and market-economy are usually used as an antithesis to state involvement, regulation and nationalism. Conversely, this dissertation illustrates that the privatisation of the national territorial project was a statedirected effort intended to align the geopolitical agenda with the prevailing neoliberal order; using the market-economy as a means to enhance the state’s control over space. This dissertation focuses on the border area with the occupied Palestinian West-Bank, the Green-Line. Scarcely populated in the first three decades after the establishment of Israel, this area witnessed an ever-growing state-directed development effort following the occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967. Developed by an increasing private involvement, this area constitutes a unique case study on the relationship between geopolitics and market economy; marked by the construction of the first privately developed national infrastructure project in the early 2000s – the Trans-Israel Highway. To understand the privatisation of this national project since 1977, this dissertation proposes focusing on the settlement mechanism. This comprises the reciprocal interests of the state and various private groups to develop and domesticate the frontier area of the Green-Line. Centring on the spatial privileges the state granted diverse spatial agents, this dissertation examines how different favoured groups were given the power to colonise, plan, develop and market space in return for enhancing the state’s power over it. Investigating how this settlement mechanism transformed over the years, including a variety of spatial agents and diverse spatial privileges, this research explores the increasing privatisation of the local economy and culture, as well as the manner in which it was manifested in the built environment. Examining the modifications in the architectural and urban products this mechanism produced, this research analyses the materialisation of the privatised national settlement project and how it transformed together with the changing political and economic interests. Focusing on the area along the Green-Line, this dissertation starts with examining the Community Settlements of the late 1970s and then moves to the Suburban Settlements of the 1980s. Examining both phenomena, the dissertation explains how their ex-urban and suburban qualities corresponded with the granted spatial privileges, forming a geopolitical tool intended to domesticate the Green-Line. Subsequently, the dissertation concentrates on the mass suburbanisation of the 1990s and the financialisation of the 2000s. Examining both stages, this dissertation illustrates how the state asked to domesticate the frontier by turning it into a real estate market; directing investment while securing the developers’ profitability and rentability concerns. Observing these four stages, this dissertation examines the gradual privatisation of the settlement mechanism. Analysing the different settlement phenomena, this research explains how the transforming individual and corporate interests were manifested in the built environment. Eventually, enabling the continuation of the national geopolitical agenda by tying it to the rationale of the market; replacing the former monolithic state-led development by uniform and reproduced corporate-led projects

High pressure cosmochemistry applied to major planetary interiors: Experimental studies

The infrared spectra of H2O ice VII and D2O ice VII were studied and techniques were developed for measuring adiabats of phases of NH3-H2O to 5 GPa. A mixing system for pressurized fluids was constructed in which liquid solutions of definite compositions can be prepared and loaded reliably into diamond cells in a project which seeks to determine the properties and boundaries of several high pressure phases of the H2-He-H2O-NH3-CH4 system. These data are needed to constrain theoretical models of the interiors of the major planets

High pressure cosmochemistry applied to major planetary interiors: Experimental studies

Progress is reported in the development of the P-T-X diagram for 0 less than or = X less than or = 0.50 and in the development of techniques for measuring adiabats of phases of NH3-H2O. The partial phase diagram is presented, investigations of the compositions of ammonia ices are described, and methods for obtaining the infrared spectra of ices are discussed

Who is Columbine? Forgetting the public in contemporary memorial sites

Includes bibliographical references.2015 Summer.The Columbine Memorial in Littleton, Colorado honors and remembers the thirteen victims of the Columbine High School shooting. The memorial presents itself as an open, public space in which all are welcomed to visit, mourn, or reflect as they wish upon the events of April 20, 1999; however, the memorial’s rhetorical tactics seem intended exclusively for a particular and privatized public—namely, the survivors, family members, and intimates of those killed in the shooting. Through critique of the Columbine Memorial as a public memory place, this occurrence presents a rhetorically oriented instance of “forgetting the public.” Forgetting the public, as conceived here, results from the privileging of individualized memories within public commemorative sites, ultimately leaving those visitors outside of a narrowly circumscribed public unacknowledged by the memorial site. I contend that forgetting publics prevents public identification with memorial sites, which disrupts the epideictic processes necessary for a memorial to achieve its intended civic purposes. This study critically examines the memorial’s employment of specific rhetorical tactics, as viewed through the relationship between private and public memory. This lens reveals three trends occurring within the memorial that inform our understanding of contemporary memorial sites, including Presence/Absence, Intimacy/Publicity, and Discursivity/Materiality. Specific examples within each trend demonstrate an apparent forgetting of the public, ultimately leading to the conclusion that the Columbine Memorial perpetuates the privileging of private interests over those of the general public

Decolonisation, gentrification, and the settler-colonial city: Reappropriation and new forms of urban exclusion in Israel

Focusing on the immigration of upper-middle-class Palestinian families to the Israeli town of Upper-Nazareth, originally built by the state to enhance Jewish presence in the area, this paper frames the concept of decolonising gentrification. Accordingly, it studies a unique inconsistency between economic class and ethnonational hegemony, which enables upwardly Arab minority families to overcome ethnic barriers and to exercise social and spatial mobility. Therefore, this paper explains how these socio-political dynamics challenge the local settler-colonial aspects of urban development and enable the reappropriation of colonised urban space. Focusing on the case of Upper-Nazareth and its former ‘Officers’ Neighbourhood’, we examine a distinctive contradiction between political power and economic abilities that triggers a unique case of gentrification, where the colonised minority gentrifies the colonising hegemony. At the same time, this decolonising gentrification, as we argue, takes place in restricted urban enclaves, and relies on an ethno-class price gap as it is only the minority upper-class who is willing to pay the increasing prices, due to their limited options. Therefore, as this paper shows, decolonising gentrification simultaneously challenges and recreates urban settler-colonialism, enabling limited market-oriented reappropriation while triggering ethnic-based accumulation and new forms of neoliberal exclusion

Anatomische Untersuchungen der oberen Atemwege an Präparaten von Früh- und Neugeborenen zur Verbesserung der Atemwegssicherung

Die Atemwegssicherung bei Früh- und Neugeborenen stellt in der medizinischen Praxis nach wie vor eine Herausforderung dar. In dieser Studie wurde die Anatomie der oberen Atemwege von totgeborenen Neugeborenen mit einem Gestationsalter von 25 bis 44 Wochen untersucht, um das Atemwegsmanagement zu verbessern und die Entwicklung von Atemwegshilfen, insbesondere supraglottischen Atemwegshilfen, zu fördern. Winkel und Durchmesser der oralen und nasalen Intubationswege von 22 anatomischen Präparaten Früh- und Reifgeborener wurden bestimmt, in Beziehung zum Gestationsalter gesetzt und auf statistische Signifikanz überprüft. Von den oralen und nasalen Intubationswegen wurden mit einem zahnärztlichen Silikonabformmaterial Abformmodelle hergestellt und anschließend 3D-Scans angefertigt. Keiner der untersuchten Winkel zeigte eine signifikante Korrelation mit dem Gestationsalter, jedoch wiesen vier der untersuchten Durchmesser im Bereich des harten und weichen Gaumens eine statistisch signifikante positive Korrelation mit dem Gestationsalter auf. Es lässt sich festhalten, dass die Winkel der Atemwege von Früh- und Neugeborenen nicht systematisch vom Gestationsalter abhängen. Aus anatomischer Sicht können daher Larynxmasken auch für Frühgeborene gut geeignete Atemwegshilfen sein. Das Design von Larynxmasken für kleine Frühgeborene sollte bezüglich der Größe, nicht jedoch bezüglich der Form angepasst werden. Die gewonnenen Daten können als Grundlage für die Entwicklung von supraglottischen Atemwegshilfen und Atemwegssimulatoren für die medizinische Ausbildung und das klinische Training dienen

Market and Counterparty Credit Risk: Selected Computational and Managerial Aspects

The thesis can be placed within the literature on market and counterparty credit risk, contributing along the following three dimensions: 1. Interest rate risk (IRR) management: The thesis starts with an overview on asset liability management (ALM) in general and IRR management in particular. It then gives a novel procedure for structuring swap overlays for pensions funds, allowing for optimal hedging of IRR without affecting the strategic asset allocation (SAA). The thesis also offers an extension of the analysis of the Cairns (2004) stochastic interest rate model Deriving respective model-based sensitivity measures (Cairns deltas). It finally applies the model to a practical application, analyzing it when it comes to long-term contracts. 2. Pricing and managing counterparty credit risk A compact overview on counterparty credit risk (CCR) and credit valuation adjustment (CVA) is given. This is followed by a unique analyses around valuation, relevant accounting and regulatory requirements as well as pricing and mitigation, esp. Illustration of how CVA capital charge shows the tautology behind the discussions around regulatory requirements. The thesis contributes also to the discourse on debt valuation adjustment (DVA), e.g. showing that some aspects are not that unintuitive as presumed (e.g. DVA is being priced). 3. CVA modeling and wrong way risk. The thesis gives an overview on credit risk modeling in general and credit spreads in particular. It especially revisits the CVA for CDS model introduced by Brigo and Capponi (2010), giving e.g. A) a step-by-step implementation guide, esp. w.r.t to parts Brigo and Capponi (2010) left open; B) a computational tune-up, incl. a demonstration of its robustness across a variety of scenarios, and a realistic case study; C) a novel analysis of the Brigo & Capponi (2010) model in particular and CVA modeling in genera

A REVIEW OF THE BARRIERS TO THE CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY OF AUTISM SCREENING TOOLS

This thesis is a review of barriers that culturally and linguistically diverse families face when seeking an autism diagnosis. Based on Vygotskian social constructivist theory, which says that culture and language are the foundation of our experiences, communication, and understanding of reality, different cultures and languages will have different markers of development. This is particularly relevant when considering autism screening tools and their application across cultures and languages; if the tools were not created with specific cultural and linguistic norms in mind, they may not be able to accurately identify autism. After reviewing current literature and research, three barriers were found that effect culturally and linguistically diverse families and their ability to attain equitable autism tools. These barriers – use of language, cultural beliefs/social stigma, and lack of access – necessitate new inclusion criteria for research and interventions so that these tools are also applicable for use with culturally and linguistically diverse families. Providing these families with the appropriate tools for obtaining an autism diagnosis is an important step in also getting them access to early interventions. It is hoped that this review will help bring attention to the barriers these families face and increase the research necessary to overcome these barriers and provide them with equitable care.Bachelor of Arts in Educatio

Whole genome sequence analysis reveals the broad distribution of the RtxA type 1 secretion system and four novel putative type 1 secretion systems throughout the Legionella genus.

Type 1 secretion systems (T1SSs) are broadly distributed among bacteria and translocate effectors with diverse function across the bacterial cell membrane. Legionella pneumophila, the species most commonly associated with Legionellosis, encodes a T1SS at the lssXYZABD locus which is responsible for the secretion of the virulence factor RtxA. Many investigations have failed to detect lssD, the gene encoding the membrane fusion protein of the RtxA T1SS, in non-pneumophila Legionella, which has led to the assumption that this system is a virulence factor exclusively possessed by L. pneumophila. Here we discovered RtxA and its associated T1SS in a novel Legionella taurinensis strain, leading us to question whether this system may be more widespread than previously thought. Through a bioinformatic analysis of publicly available data, we classified and determined the distribution of four T1SSs including the RtxA T1SS and four novel T1SSs among diverse Legionella spp. The ABC transporter of the novel Legionella T1SS Legionella repeat protein secretion system shares structural similarity to those of diverse T1SS families, including the alkaline protease T1SS in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The Legionella bacteriocin (1-3) secretion systems T1SSs are novel putative bacteriocin transporting T1SSs as their ABC transporters include C-39 peptidase domains in their N-terminal regions, with LB2SS and LB3SS likely constituting a nitrile hydratase leader peptide transport T1SSs. The LB1SS is more closely related to the colicin V T1SS in Escherichia coli. Of 45 Legionella spp. whole genomes examined, 19 (42%) were determined to possess lssB and lssD homologs. Of these 19, only 7 (37%) are known pathogens. There was no difference in the proportions of disease associated and non-disease associated species that possessed the RtxA T1SS (p = 0.4), contrary to the current consensus regarding the RtxA T1SS. These results draw into question the nature of RtxA and its T1SS as a singular virulence factor. Future studies should investigate mechanistic explanations for the association of RtxA with virulence