Good Design is Good Business: An Analysis in Mixed-Use Architecture

Over the past several decades, a buzz-word has surfaced in the related fields of architecture, finance, and their intersection in the commercial real estate industry – “mixeduse.” Although this may seem like a new form of urban design, it can be traced back hundreds of years to the walled cities of medieval Europe. As centuries of urban development, decay, and redevelopment have played out, influential voices have been calling for an abandonment of single-use urban design and a return to a mix of uses. While mixed-use can be defined as simply as a development than contains three or more revenue-generating components on the same site, it is far more nuanced than that. A successful mixed-use development relies on cooperation between architects, developers, government officials, and community stakeholders. Additionally, it requires adherence to particular processes – engagement, scaling, and anticipation – and principles – place, equity, and detail – to be successful, both from an architectural and financial perspective. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of this thesis, a section will address the challenges and benefits that come with financing mixed-use developments and some of their unique financial features. These include high barriers to entry for smaller firms, a large required flexibility in project planning and debt structuring, a higher risk and return profile compared to single-use assets, and diversification and operational benefits. As it pertains to the architectural nature of this thesis, field research and observations for analytical discussion will be conducted at four award-winning, mixed-use developments: City Point in Brooklyn, NY, CityCenterDC in Washington, DC, CityCentre in Houston, TX, and Union Station in Denver, CO. These case studies will be analyzed along the processes and principles previously mentioned to determine what makes a successful mixed-use development.Plan II Honors Progra

Generation of Hyperentangled Photons Pairs

We experimentally demonstrate the first quantum system entangled in every degree of freedom (hyperentangled). Using pairs of photons produced in spontaneous parametric downconversion, we verify entanglement by observing a Bell-type inequality violation in each degree of freedom: polarization, spatial mode and time-energy. We also produce and characterize maximally hyperentangled states and novel states simultaneously exhibiting both quantum and classical correlations. Finally, we report the tomography of a 2x2x3x3 system (36-dimensional Hilbert space), which we believe is the first reported photonic entangled system of this size to be so characterized.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, published versio

Genome wide expression profiling reveals suppression of host defence responses during colonisation by Neisseria meningitides but not N. lactamica.

Both Neisseria meningitidis and the closely related bacterium Neisseria lactamica colonise human nasopharyngeal mucosal surface, but only N. meningitidis invades the bloodstream to cause potentially life-threatening meningitis and septicaemia. We have hypothesised that the two neisserial species differentially modulate host respiratory epithelial cell gene expression reflecting their disease potential. Confluent monolayers of 16HBE14 human bronchial epithelial cells were exposed to live and/or dead N. meningitidis (including capsule and pili mutants) and N. lactamica, and their transcriptomes were compared using whole genome microarrays. Changes in expression of selected genes were subsequently validated using Q-RT-PCR and ELISAs. Live N. meningitidis and N. lactamica induced genes involved in host energy production processes suggesting that both bacterial species utilise host resources. N. meningitidis infection was associated with down-regulation of host defence genes. N. lactamica, relative to N. meningitidis, initiates up-regulation of proinflammatory genes. Bacterial secreted proteins alone induced some of the changes observed. The results suggest N. meningitidis and N. lactamica differentially regulate host respiratory epithelial cell gene expression through colonisation and/or protein secretion, and that this may contribute to subsequent clinical outcomes associated with these bacteria

Exploring justifications of “The Social Contract” between the banking sector, financial regulators, and NGOs

The banking sector is important to the UK, employing 1.2% of the workforce whilst contributing 5.5% of tax receipts; indeed, the credit creation role of banks is essential in modern economies. Banks caused the financial crisis of 2007/8 and subsequently the sector was beset by scandals, leading to calls for “a new social contract” between the banks and society (Tucker, 2009). The aim of this study is to explore public justifications of “The Social Contract” by the Banking Sector, Financial Regulators, and NGOs (the latter as representatives of “civil society”). Social contracts may be represented by “public justifications”, the constructs of which are analysable using an empirical framework: “orders of worth” express a particular paradigm toward justice and the “common good”. The orders of worth or “polities” - Market, Industrial, Civic, Domestic, Inspired, Reputation, Projective, and Green, are all characterised by dimensions such as investment criteria, qualified objects, qualified subjects, and inequalities of status relations. A qualitative content analysis approach is used to analyse texts such as speeches and annual reports for the presence or absence of, and compromises between, the polities. As the first study of its type in banking and finance, the findings have implications for regulators, who should be aware of the newly identified “instrumental” compromise constructed by banks in their approach to regulation. Regulators should also be aware of the increased risk of moral hazard arising from their own market-oriented justifications of the social contract. A further contribution to the banking and finance literature is to problematise the limited use of ecological justifications in banks’ and regulators’ constructs of the social contract. Banks often focus on shareholders in their public justifications, demonstrating a gap between theory and practice in the pragmatic sociology literature: the normative exclusion of investors as qualified subjects is problematic given the important position shareholders hold in banks’ construction of their roles and responsibilities. Further, development of the market polity is proposed to better cater for banks’ “credence services” and long-term client relationships