A System Dynamics Model of Cyclical Office Oversupply

This article explores office market system dynamics through a simple simulation model. Model lag and adjustment parameters similar to real office markets generate explosive cycles. Simulations show that deviations from equilibrium can be reduced by changing the information structure of the system. System dynamics, principle/agent conflicts, a prisoners’ dilemma game, faulty information (poor forecasting, market research and valuation techniques), regulatory institutions, and differing equilibria in office space and financial markets all contribute to allocative inefficiency. Thinking of office markets as a "managed feedback control system" may be a useful representation of the oversupply problem. Leverage points for system improvement may be a municipal "queue" to address agency and prisoner's dilemma problems, improved forecasting techniques and more reliance on forecasting.

The Graaskamp Legacy

James A. Graaskamp\u27s perspective on classroom education and his alternative research paradigm pioneered or greatly enhanced several real estate principles that are more relevant today than during his life. These principles are summarized and presented in 5 sections: A Different Brand of Research, The Development Feasibility, How Appraisers Value, Who\u27s Watching the Chicken Coop, and Teaching an Ethical Vision

Estimating rainfall and water balance over the Okavango River Basin for hydrological applications

A historical database for use in rainfall-runoff modeling of the Okavango River Basin in Southwest Africa is presented. The work has relevance for similar data-sparse regions. The parameters of main concern are rainfall and catchment water balance which are key variables for subsequent studies of the hydrological impacts of development and climate change. Rainfall estimates are based on a combination of in-situ gauges and satellite sources. Rain gauge measurements are most extensive from 1955 to 1972, after which they are drastically reduced due to the Angolan civil war. The sensitivity of the rainfall fields to spatial interpolation techniques and the density of gauges was evaluated. Satellite based rainfall estimates for the basin are developed for the period from 1991 onwards, based on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) data sets. The consistency between the gauges and satellite estimates was considered. A methodology was developed to allow calibration of the rainfall-runoff hydrological model against rain gauge data from 1960-1972, with the prerequisite that the model should be driven by satellite derived rainfall products for the 1990s onwards. With the rain gauge data, addition of a single rainfall station (Longa) in regions where stations earlier were lacking was more important than the chosen interpolation method. Comparison of satellite and gauge rainfall outside the basin indicated that the satellite overestimates rainfall by 20%. A non-linear correction was derived used by fitting the rainfall frequency characteristics to those of the historical rainfall data. This satellite rainfall dataset was found satisfactory when using the Pitman rainfall-runoff model (Hughes et al., this issue). Intensive monitoring in the region is recommended to increase accuracy of the comprehensive satellite rainfall estimate calibration procedur

Bayesian retrieval of complete posterior PDFs of oceanic rain rate from microwave observations

A new Bayesian algorithm for retrieving surface rain rate from Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) over the ocean is presented, along with validations against estimates from the TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR). The Bayesian approach offers a rigorous basis for optimally combining multichannel observations with prior knowledge. While other rain-rate algorithms have been published that are based at least partly on Bayesian reasoning, this is believed to be the first self-contained algorithm that fully exploits Bayes’s theorem to yield not just a single rain rate, but rather a continuous posterior probability distribution of rain rate. To advance the understanding of theoretical benefits of the Bayesian approach, sensitivity analyses have been conducted based on two synthetic datasets for which the “true” conditional and prior distribution are known. Results demonstrate that even when the prior and conditional likelihoods are specified perfectly, biased retrievals may occur at high rain rates. This bias is not the result of a defect of the Bayesian formalism, but rather represents the expected outcome when the physical constraint imposed by the radiometric observations is weak owing to saturation effects. It is also suggested that both the choice of the estimators and the prior information are crucial to the retrieval. In addition, the performance of the Bayesian algorithm herein is found to be comparable to that of other benchmark algorithms in real-world applications, while having the additional advantage of providing a complete continuous posterior probability distribution of surface rain rate

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Should Good Girls Like Bad Sex: Depictions of Kink in Cosmo

Kink has become a more widely discussed sexual practice over time. Recent pop culture releases like the publication of Fifty Shades of Grey have increased this discussion. Cosmopolitan magazine (Cosmo) is one of the most well-known women’s magazines in the world and its sexual advice is one of its defining characteristics. Using both quantitative and qualitative approaches, I examine Cosmo’s depictions of kink from 1996 to 2014. Cosmo was more likely to mention kink in later years than in earlier ones, and its mentions of kink in later years were more likely to be positive. These mentions were most common the year after Fifty Shades of Grey was published. However, though the magazine bills itself as edgy and boundary pushing, Cosmo’s sexual advice over the study period tended to reinforce the existing status quo that prioritizes male sexuality and tasked women with fulfilling their partner’s sexual needs

The Cause for Heart Disease and Strokes

There has been no solution to heart disease to date. I obtained discarded veins from bypass (CABG) surgeries and subjected them to phospholipid analysis. We also obtained arterial cells from human umbilical cords and cultured them with a decreasing concentration of either cholesterol or oxidized cholesterol. Patients undergoing CABG surgery and aging swine had significantly higher levels of sphingomyelin in their arterial cells than arterial cells from human umbilical cords. Oxidized low-density lipoprotein (OxLDL) and oxysterols further contribute to atherosclerosis by increasing the synthesis of thromboxane in platelets, a clotting factor. When we incubated arterial cells with cholesterol that had not been oxidized, even at twelve times the concentration of the oxidized cholesterols we used, there was no effect on sphingomyelin content, this shows that cholesterol itself is not the reason for heart disease, and has to be oxidized in order to cause harm. My study indicated that atherosclerosis is due to a diet that contains a high level of oxysterols. Normal levels of oxysterols in the plasma will not increase sphingomyelin levels. Removing oxidized fat from the diet should be considered as a therapeutic measure for atherosclerosis. Ancel Keys, who some consider the father of the cholesterol-heart disease hypothesis said in 1997: "There's no connection whatsoever between the cholesterol in food and cholesterol in the blood.

Immigration Restriction Then, Immigration Restriction Now; The Politics of IQ

Background: Immigration laws in the United States have had a strong impact on the development and utilization of intelligence testing since the early 1800\u27s. Basic restriction laws were initially put into place to uphold the biological fitness of our country by excluding persons with physical, mental and intellectual disabilities. As the United States drew more immigrants into its country, physicians and doctors began to develop intelligence tests to examine new immigrants from all over the world. It was at Ellis Island where an extraordinary amount of scientific research took place and intelligence tests became the standard for determining mental abilities. Ellis Island physicians utilized many different performance tests, and administered them to the thousands upon thousands of immigrants hoping to live in the United States. The Objective of this study was to determine whether or not Ellis Island physicians were correctly measuring what they thought to be intelligence. Sampling and Methods: The research sample consisted of 39 male and female students in third and fourth grade. Subjects were given recreated Ellis Island puzzle tasks, the Knox Cube test as well as current measures of Intelligence from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, 4th Edition- Integrated. Results: There was no correlation between recreated Ellis Island tasks and current measures of intelligence. Conclusion: Ellis Island Physicians may not have been measuring aspects of intelligence as they thought, however they greatly contributed to the research and development of cognitive testing