Global investors often invest in publicly traded indirect real estate (IRE) such as Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) and listed property companies rather than physical real estate asset in order to get exposure in foreign real estate markets for a number of reasons that mainly originated from the high transaction cost in the direct real estate (DRE) market. However, in reality IRE is not a perfect substitute of DRE and that the substitutability between IRE and DRE varies across markets. Very little is known about the factors that contributed to the variation. One possible contributing factor is the variation in the degree of real estate market transparency across markets, which is seldom examined in the previous studies. This thesis provides empirical evidence on the impact of real estate market transparency on the linkages between IRE and DRE. This study examines two aspects of IRE-DRE linkages, namely, return (first moment) linkages and volatility (second moment) linkages. This thesis uses style analysis to measure return linkages and variance decomposition to measure volatility linkages. After that, the correlations between IRE-DRE linkages and Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL)’s global real estate market transparency index will be examined. The empirical results show that the JLL global real estate market transparency index does have a positive impact on the linkages between IRE and DRE, especially on the volatility linkages. In addition, regulatory and legal transparency sub-index as well as real estate transaction process transparency sub-index have the strongest impact on both return and volatility IRE-DRE linkages. A highly-developed legal system as well as consistent regulatory enforcement (as measured by the degree of fairness treatment towards both domestic and foreign investors) ensures that real estate investors’ rights are well protected and thus the values of the underlying real estate asset are reflected in the IRE, which strengthens the IRE-DRE linkages. In addition, having a well-functioning regulatory and legal framework also means that DRE market transaction information is reliable which can be used for more accurate valuations. This assists investors in valuing the IRE based on their audited financial statements and thus strengthens the IRE-DRE linkages. Real estate transaction process transparency refers to market transparency in both pre-sale and spot real estate market. The presale market is essentially a forward market. Price information in the spot market can assist investors in assessing the future prospect of IRE and thus facilitates the price discovery process between the IRE and DRE. High transparency in the presale market therefore lead to stronger IRE-DRE linkages. The findings of this study provide several implications for global investors and local policy makers. Though emerging markets, which have low market transparency, are playing a more and more significant role in international real estate investment portfolios, global investors should understand the limitation of investing IRE as a means to gain exposure in DRE since the IRE-DRE linkages are usually weak in emergent markets. On the other hand, policy makers should spend more efforts to increase real estate market transparency if they wish to attract investments from global investors. In particular, policy makers should aim at improving the regulatory and legal framework as well as enhancing the transaction process transparency. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Master / Master of Philosophy

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Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Real-time control systems are widely deployed in many applications. Theory and practice for the design and deployment of real-time control systems have evolved significantly. From the design perspective, control strategy development has been the focus of the research in the control community. In order to develop good control strategies, process modelling and analysis have been investigated for decades, and stability analysis and model-based control have been heavily studied in the literature. From the implementation perspective, real-time control systems require timeliness and predictable timing behaviour in addition to logical correctness, and a real-time control system may behave very differently with different software implementations of the control strategies on a digital controller, which typically has limited computing resources. Most current research activities on software implementations concentrate on various scheduling methodologies to ensure the schedulability of multiple control tasks in constrained environments. Recently, more and more real-time control systems are implemented over data networks, leading to increasing interest worldwide in the design and implementation of networked control systems (NCS). Major research activities in NCS include control-oriented and scheduling-oriented investigations. In spite of significant progress in the research and development of real-time control systems, major difficulties exist in the state of the art. A key issue is the lack of integrated design for control development and its software implementation. For control design, the model-based control technique, the current focus of control research, does not work when a good process model is not available or is too complicated for control design. For control implementation on digital controllers running multiple tasks, the system schedulability is essential but is not enough; the ultimate objective of satisfactory quality-of-control (QoC) performance has not been addressed directly. For networked control, the majority of the control-oriented investigations are based on two unrealistic assumptions about the network induced delay. The scheduling-oriented research focuses on schedulability and does not directly link to the overall QoC of the system. General solutions with direct QoC consideration from the network perspective to the challenging problems of network delay and packet dropout in NCS have not been found in the literature. This thesis addresses the design and implementation of real-time control systems with regard to dynamics analysis and integrated design. Three related areas have been investigated, namely control development for controllers, control implementation and scheduling on controllers, and real-time control in networked environments. Seven research problems are identified from these areas for investigation in this thesis, and accordingly seven major contributions have been claimed. Timing behaviour, quality of control, and integrated design for real-time control systems are highlighted throughout this thesis. In control design, a model-free control technique, pattern predictive control, is developed for complex reactive distillation processes. Alleviating the requirement of accurate process models, the developed control technique integrates pattern recognition, fuzzy logic, non-linear transformation, and predictive control into a unified framework to solve complex problems. Characterising the QoC indirectly with control latency and jitter, scheduling strategies for multiple control tasks are proposed to minimise the latency and/or jitter. Also, a hierarchical, QoC driven, and event-triggering feedback scheduling architecture is developed with plug-ins of either the earliest-deadline-first or fixed priority scheduling. Linking to the QoC directly, the architecture minimises the use of computing resources without sacrifice of the system QoC. It considers the control requirements, but does not rely on the control design. For real-time NCS, the dynamics of the network delay are analysed first, and the nonuniform distribution and multi-fractal nature of the delay are revealed. These results do not support two fundamental assumptions used in existing NCS literature. Then, considering the control requirements, solutions are provided to the challenging NCS problems from the network perspective. To compensate for the network delay, a real-time queuing protocol is developed to smooth out the time-varying delay and thus to achieve more predictable behaviour of packet transmissions. For control packet dropout, simple yet effective compensators are proposed. Finally, combining the queuing protocol, the packet loss compensation, the configuration of the worst-case communication delay, and the control design, an integrated design framework is developed for real-time NCS. With this framework, the network delay is limited to within a single control period, leading to simplified system analysis and improved QoC.

Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / This thesis builds on the real estate lease model of Grenadier which consists of the Black Scholes PDE and an upper reflecting boundary condition. Extending the method of images of Buchen, a new technique was developed to solve this class of problems. Problems that previously required difficult integration can now be solved with algebra and simple integrals. In addition, the compound option in this framework is solved using this new technique. To the best of our knowledge the solution of the compound problem has not been published. An interesting symmetry between this class of problems and the lookback option was also discovered and described in this thesis. The extension of the method of images to include problems with the reflecting boundary condition in the context of real estate leases was presented at the Financial Integrity Research Network Doctoral Tutorials at the University of Technology, Sydney, in 2006. The presentation was awarded the ``FIRN Best Paper Award''. This paper has been submitted to the Journal of Financial Mathematics for publication. The solution to the compound problem in the context of the upward-only market review option is the subject of the next paper.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Real-time control systems are widely deployed in many applications. Theory and practice for the design and deployment of real-time control systems have evolved significantly. From the design perspective, control strategy development has been the focus of the research in the control community. In order to develop good control strategies, process modelling and analysis have been investigated for decades, and stability analysis and model-based control have been heavily studied in the literature. From the implementation perspective, real-time control systems require timeliness and predictable timing behaviour in addition to logical correctness, and a real-time control system may behave very differently with different software implementations of the control strategies on a digital controller, which typically has limited computing resources. Most current research activities on software implementations concentrate on various scheduling methodologies to ensure the schedulability of multiple control tasks in constrained environments. Recently, more and more real-time control systems are implemented over data networks, leading to increasing interest worldwide in the design and implementation of networked control systems (NCS). Major research activities in NCS include control-oriented and scheduling-oriented investigations. In spite of significant progress in the research and development of real-time control systems, major difficulties exist in the state of the art. A key issue is the lack of integrated design for control development and its software implementation. For control design, the model-based control technique, the current focus of control research, does not work when a good process model is not available or is too complicated for control design. For control implementation on digital controllers running multiple tasks, the system schedulability is essential but is not enough; the ultimate objective of satisfactory quality-of-control (QoC) performance has not been addressed directly. For networked control, the majority of the control-oriented investigations are based on two unrealistic assumptions about the network induced delay. The scheduling-oriented research focuses on schedulability and does not directly link to the overall QoC of the system. General solutions with direct QoC consideration from the network perspective to the challenging problems of network delay and packet dropout in NCS have not been found in the literature. This thesis addresses the design and implementation of real-time control systems with regard to dynamics analysis and integrated design. Three related areas have been investigated, namely control development for controllers, control implementation and scheduling on controllers, and real-time control in networked environments. Seven research problems are identified from these areas for investigation in this thesis, and accordingly seven major contributions have been claimed. Timing behaviour, quality of control, and integrated design for real-time control systems are highlighted throughout this thesis. In control design, a model-free control technique, pattern predictive control, is developed for complex reactive distillation processes. Alleviating the requirement of accurate process models, the developed control technique integrates pattern recognition, fuzzy logic, non-linear transformation, and predictive control into a unified framework to solve complex problems. Characterising the QoC indirectly with control latency and jitter, scheduling strategies for multiple control tasks are proposed to minimise the latency and/or jitter. Also, a hierarchical, QoC driven, and event-triggering feedback scheduling architecture is developed with plug-ins of either the earliest-deadline-first or fixed priority scheduling. Linking to the QoC directly, the architecture minimises the use of computing resources without sacrifice of the system QoC. It considers the control requirements, but does not rely on the control design. For real-time NCS, the dynamics of the network delay are analysed first, and the nonuniform distribution and multi-fractal nature of the delay are revealed. These results do not support two fundamental assumptions used in existing NCS literature. Then, considering the control requirements, solutions are provided to the challenging NCS problems from the network perspective. To compensate for the network delay, a real-time queuing protocol is developed to smooth out the time-varying delay and thus to achieve more predictable behaviour of packet transmissions. For control packet dropout, simple yet effective compensators are proposed. Finally, combining the queuing protocol, the packet loss compensation, the configuration of the worst-case communication delay, and the control design, an integrated design framework is developed for real-time NCS. With this framework, the network delay is limited to within a single control period, leading to simplified system analysis and improved QoC.

Thesis (M.S.)--Auburn University, 2007. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references (ℓ. 74-76)

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Montana, 2008. / Title from title screen. Description based on contents viewed Aug. 25, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-111).

Thesis (M. Hous. M.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 161-170)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Cleveland State University, 2008. / Abstract. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on May 8, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 126-135). Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center. Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--Western Kentucky University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-61).