The environmental value of buildings: a proposal for performance assessment with reference to the case of the tall office building

Buildings consume approximately 33% of the world's energy, equivalent to 21% of global CO₂ emissions (IEA 2009, World energy outlook 2009, http://www.iea.org/weo/electricity.asp). Given the current scenario of energy consumption in buildings, the objective of this paper is to present some of the key issues related to assessment of the environmental performance of buildings, supported by the proposal of strategic indicators (with reference to the tall office building), followed by a critical review of the value of environmental design. Fieldwork has shown that a group of European case-studies show signs of change beginning to emerge considering value ahead of first cost, challenging the conventional commercial model. Energy savings and environmental quality in the operation of buildings bring marketability benefits to tenants, whilst future-proofing investments are of benefit to investors. In addition, buildings need to go beyond governmental targets to be able to remain competitive, adding value to environmentally considerate design.     

Do ethnic minorities ��stretch�� their time? UK household evidence on multitasking

This paper investigates the effect of ethnicity on time spent on secondary household production, work and leisure activities employing the 2000 UK Time Use Survey. We find that, unconditionally, white females manage to “stretch” their time the most by almost four additional hours per day and non-white men “stretch” their time the least. The three secondary activities most often combined with other (primary) activities in terms of time spent on them are social activities including resting, passive leisure and childcare. Regression results indicate that non-white ethnic minorities engage less in multitasking than whites, with Pakistani and Bangladeshi males spending the least time on total secondary activities. There also exists a significant ethnicity gap for secondary housework activities and for both males and females, although females in general engage more in multitasking. The effect is heterogeneous across different sub-groups. We review several potential interpretations and discuss whether these differences in behavior may relate, among other, to opportunity costs of time, different preferences and tastes of ethnic minorities, integration experience, family composition and household productivity.     

Matrimonial circuits in kinship networks: Calculation, enumeration and census

The article presents a series of new methods for analyzing the morphology of kinship networks via the study of matrimonial circuits (closed chains of kinship and marriage ties). The article gives a simple definition of matrimonial circuits in mixed graphs and introduces the technique of representing matrimonial circuit types by characteristic vectors. This technique is used to develop (1) an arithmetic approach to the algebra of circuit composition, (2) a method for the complete enumeration of matrimonial circuit types, and (3) an algorithm for finding and counting matrimonial circuits in empirical kinship networks. All methods have been implemented in the software Puck (Program for the Use and Computation of Kinship Data).     

Inference Under Heteroskedasticity and Leveraged Data

We evaluate the finite-sample behavior of different heteros-ke-das-ticity-consistent covariance matrix estimators, under both constant and unequal error variances. We consider the estimator proposed by Halbert White (HC0), and also its variants known as HC2, HC3, and HC4; the latter was recently proposed by Cribari-Neto (2004 Cribari-Neto , F. ( 2004 ). Asymptotic inference under heteroskedasticity of unknown form . Computat. Statist. Data Anal. 45 : 215 – 233 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). We propose a new covariance matrix estimator: HC5. It is the first consistent estimator to explicitly take into account the effect that the maximal leverage has on the associated inference. Our numerical results show that quasi-t inference based on HC5 is typically more reliable than inference based on other covariance matrix estimators.     

Maximum Likelihood Inference for Multivariate Frailty Models Using an Automated Monte Carlo EM Algorithm

We present a maximum likelihood estimation procedure for the multivariate frailty model. The estimation is based on a Monte Carlo EM algorithm. The expectation step is approximated by averaging over random samples drawn from the posterior distribution of the frailties using rejection sampling. The maximization step reduces to a standard partial likelihood maximization. We also propose a simple rule based on the relative change in the parameter estimates to decide on sample size in each iteration and a stopping time for the algorithm. An important new concept is acquiring absolute convergence of the algorithm through sample size determination and an efficient sampling technique. The method is illustrated using a rat carcinogenesis dataset and data on vase lifetimes of cut roses. The estimation results are compared with approximate inference based on penalized partial likelihood using these two examples. Unlike the penalized partial likelihood estimation, the proposed full maximum likelihood estimation method accounts for all the uncertainty while estimating standard errors for the parameters.     

Gedanken zum Charisma-Diskurs in der Führungsforschung Braucht die Unternehmensführung Kompetenz in Zwischenmenschlichkeit oder Charisma?

Considerations on Charisma in Leadership research An African caravan leader as described in an ethnological report corresponds in no ways to Western ideals of a leader with eloquence and brightness. What is now the structure of leading and being led? Philosophical, sociological and psychological ideas are discussed in trying to answer to the question. Max Weber’s notion of power (today leadership) contains, among others, the concept of charisma, which he describes explicitly as being “outside of economy”. Therefore, the application of the enigmatic term of charisma is questionable. It is recommended to refer to group dynamics as a whole rather than applying selected concepts of psychoanalysis, such as narcissism, in order to understand and describe interaction in leadership of companies and institutions.