Wie hatten sie es sich überhaupt vorgestellt, die beiden Künstler, der Komponist und der Librettist, damals ein solch bissiges Stück wie Der goldene Hahn auf irgendeine offizielle russische Bühne zu bringen? Aber es gelang, was der Zimin-Produktion, dem Ruhm Rimskij-Korsakovs und der Schönheit der Komposition zu verdanken war. Die außerordentliche Oper überlebte alles und wird auch heute weltweit wegen ihrer wunderbaren Musik aufgeführt, wegen zwei alter (und vielleicht heute vergessener) Zarengeschichten, der von Aleksandr Puškin und der von Vladimir Bel’skij, durch die sich Nikolaj Rimskij-Korsakov zu dieser subtilen Partitur inspirieren ließ.

En omvänd aktiesplit minskar antalet aktier i ett företag samtidigt som värdet per aktie ökar. Företag genomför vanligen omvända aktiesplittar för att justera prisintervallet, förbättra aktiens anseende och minska transaktionskostnader. Trots dessa fördelar, och att processen i sig enbart är en redovisningsmässig åtgärd som inte påverkar värdet av företag, visar tidigare forskning att både offentliggörandet och genomförandet av en omvänd aktiesplit kan resultera i avvikande avkastning. Den avvikande avkastningen som uppstår vid offentliggörandet av omvända aktiesplittar kan förklaras av signaleringsteorin, att händelsen signalerar ny information till investerare gällande företagens förväntade oförmåga att höja aktiekursen genom egen prestation. Däremot är det anmärkningsvärt att avvikande avkastning också upptäckts vid genomförandet, eftersom marknaden redan borde ha anammat den nya informationen. Studien undersöker om avvikande avkastning förekommer vid omvända aktiesplittar på London Stock Exchange under åren 2016 till 2021, och om företagets tidigare prestation mätt i räntabilitet på totalt kapital kan påverka marknadsreaktionen vid offentliggörandet. Genom att använda eventstudier finner studien resultat som stöder att det förekommer negativ avvikande avkastning vid offentliggörandet, och att företagets tidigare prestationer kan påverka den avvikande avkastningen. Det upptäcktes dock inte signifikanta reaktioner vid genomförandet, vilket kan indikera att marknaden är effektiv i sin halvstarka form. För att säkerställa denna slutsats krävs dock ytterligare studier.

From before enclosure, platforms have defined use and purpose within the physical and social world. The demarcation of space through levelling, texture and surface acting together to both enable and restrict use, platforms would later give their name to the socio political construct of the platform as ideological stage. Pier Vittorio Aureli and Martino Tattara write on this at length in the text Platforms: Architecture and the Use of the Ground, where they discuss the relationship between the physical and the public or social aspect of the platform, recognising its ability to both give voice and take it away, and the role they play in creating social asymmetry. The first part of this diploma explores, through novel methods of engagement, this social aspect of public space. By embracing distance and dialogue, it uses correspondence to investigate the physical and social structures that come together to delineate and define the hazy idea of what constitutes public space. This diploma chooses to pose these questions through the lens of cooking and the shared practices that accompany it, manifesting itself in the second part as a meanwhile use of a disused public building that celebrates local food culture, alongside a speculative proposal for an unprogrammed urban terrain that plays on the notion of platforming.
What if such platforms could provide a canvas for a more spontaneous, democratic public life, one where use, access and public rights are less regulated and defined?

No description available.

Air pollution affects the environment negatively, boosts climate change, and is the cause of millions of deaths per year, first and foremost affecting the people living in urban areas. Since the early 20th century, many cities have been planned around cars, which are the main contributors to the bad air quality. However, after the Covid-19 pandemic, cities have been reshaped to enhance active travel and to provide more space for greenery. In London, this reassessment of the urban areas has led to the Low-Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs). The LTNs origins from 2019, however, most of them were implemented during the pandemic because of the crucial times demanding social distance, while also enabling people to walk and cycle more in their local borough. The LTNs only allow residents, emergency vehicles and blue badge carriers to enter, if travelling by a motorised vehicle. The scheme further aims for more greenery to be implemented. The aim of this thesis is to study the impact from the LTNs on the air quality of the local area, specifically regarding PM10 and NOX, by using openly available data from the Imperial College London. Furthermore, the existing Green Infrastructure (GI) around each sensor, as well as the traffic, has been studied and compared to the air pollutant levels. This has been done to be able to analyse the air pollutants in relation to the surrounding GI and the level of traffic. The methodology further consists of mapping the air pollutants measured by the sensors; a statistical analysis; an interview with Sally Oldfield, the Nature Conservation Manager at Islington Ecology Centre; and field studies to the sensors used in the thesis, both the ones in LTNs and the ones in non-LTNs. The boroughs included in the study are the City of London, Islington, Wandsworth, and Westminster.  Previous research about the LTNs have focused on health and social issues, and the research about traffic schemes have focused on Low Emission Zones (LEZ) and Ultra Low Emission Zones (ULEZ). Studies on the air quality impact of the Covid-19 lockdowns have been done on New York, Madrid and Barcelona. The previous research on air pollutants in urban areas show a difficulty in mapping the movement of the pollutants hence the varied variables having an impact, such as wind, weather, the height and positions of the surrounding buildings. Research on the impact on the air quality from GI in general, has shown that the efficiency is dependent on the planning, type and size of the vegetation, as well as the distance to the emission source. However, the studies on GI are uncertain in how effective it is in terms of air quality improvement.  The result of this thesis shows a decline in NOX- and PM10-values after the implementation of the LTN by all sensors. The annual patterns further show that the yearly trends of the pollutants remained, however the magnitude is lower after the implementation of the LTNs. The daily patterns show varied results, where NOX has clear connections to the traffic, and the sources of PM10 are uncertain. Lastly, the statistical analysis showed that the data series came from different distributions, except the PM10-values by one of the sensors in Islington. Although a reduction was seen by all sensors, this might be because of, e.g., the Covid-19 pandemic. Furthermore, a correlation between GI and lower values of the pollutants could be seen by some sensors, however the results varied, making it difficult to distinguish any correlation. In conclusion, the absence of traffic can be seen to reduce the air pollutants NOX and PM10, where GI might have a positive impact. Suggesting to reshape urban areas to enable active travel, and reduce the possibilities to travel by car, with the exception of blue badge carriers and emergency vehicles. Although the impact on air improvement from GI is uncertain, it is suggested to be incorporated in the planning due to its other benefits such as recreation, well- being, and biodiversity.

Gentrification is a controversial phenomenon. Some are in favor of the process as a means of urban revaluation and creator of a social mix while others condemn it as a strategy that only benefits one group: the (upper) middle class. Moreover, gentrification’s emergence is a controversial topic. While some researchers describe it as a policy and therefore a political agenda, others claim it is a shift of the market and thus a basic economic happening in the urban environment. However, observers are united by the opinion that gentrification needs to be controlled and negative impacts for residents need to be prevented. Two of such anti-gentrification measures used in London and Berlin shall be analyzed. Do they feature any potential weaknesses that could diminish their competence? Thus, essential actions against gentrification will be summarized, including improvements of the measures, which will be based on policies, activism and concepts of housing. However, it is to be identified how successfully the anti-gentrification measures are applied in these cities? An analysis of the measure’s publicity shall highlight the citizens knowledge about these methods as it is required for a successful application.

Purpose with the thesis is to describe the housing situation in the UK, identify challenges and key solutions to them. To meet the purpose three research questions have been formulated: How has the British housing market developed since world war 2? Which challenges does the British housing market face? Which are the possible solutions to the challenges on the housing market? The method used is literature sources, statistics databases well as interviews and surveys with professionals within the field. Most information was collected in the UK where were based for two months. The result and analyses are divided up in a chapter containing the housing history for UK as a whole to get a solid ground and to better understand the statistics, the main problems and potential solutions. After presenting the history I have identified the main problems in the housing market and their solutions. Problems which have their roots in the past and have developed during the years and solutions which are either new or something which worked in the past. To get a short summary of the history the most important decades are summarised in the following table. Summary 1946-1979 The era had both the Socialdemocratic Labour in power and the right wing Conservatives. The planning agenda was first oriented towards physical planning where the physical was in focus to solve the problems. During the 1960s and 1970s it was the planning which was more focused towards scientific and economic solutions to solve the problems in the cities. New houses were built mostly by the public sector which built more than 1.7 million new homes. Along with the new dwellings towns where also built and dimensioned for about 20000-60000 inhabitants. Prefabrication was introduced in order to build many houses fast and cheap. The overall building of new homes peaked in 1968 and then declined thereafter because of focus on reinvesting in the existing housing. 1980-1999 During the 1980s with the conservative Thatcher in power the view was that the state had too much power, they spent too much money and there was a limitation on free market. This showed in the urban policies which were more entrepreneurial than before. The state put a cap on the public spending which affected the building of new housing. They also sold out their share of the housing market through the “right to buy” act. During the 1990s there was a backlash to the 1980s models and it become more popular to focus on publicprivate partnerships. 2000-2019 The first half of this era had Labour in power and in the other half the Conservatives. What characterised this time was that the population as well as the economy grew but the housing building was stable and low. This meant the gap between dwellings and amount of inhabitants grew. During the first part of the era Labour focused on building and investing in existing areas in order to create better communities but this was abandoned by the Conservatives which focused more on economic growth. The challenges can be divided up in two categories; how we ensure there is more housing built and how we steer and maintain existing houses. On the UK market and specially in London there is a unbalance in the relationship between supply and demand, where the supply is not big enough compared to the demand. The reason to why supply is not enough is because there aren’t enough buildings built and the demand has increased at the same time. In the past the council built their own houses in order to ensure there was enough supply on the market, however the last 40 years the housing market has been left to private sector. The existing properties are sold out by the municipalities in order to fund other sectors within the community. The buyers of different properties are often wealthy people who later let out to the people for a high rent. The thesis present six different solutions, both market oriented and public sector oriented. The solutions are the following: 1. Lowering Construction Cost through prefabrication 2. More Effective and Smaller living 3. Temporary Housing and Temporary Permissions 4. Local Authorities builds new housing 5. Reinterpreting “Land Value” 6. CLT – community owned land trust I have come to the conclusion that since housing is a complex matter we need different sorts of solutions. We need both market oriented and public sector oriented solutions in order to find a solution and an end on the housing shortage. Therefore all six solutions which was presented is valid on different scale solving different angles of the problems with housing shortage.

This dissertation consists of three separate but interrelated studies examining the formation and management of tax policies. The first study uses stakeholder theory (ST) to investigate the strategic management practices of the Transport for London (TfL) during discrete stages in the adoption, implementation, and amendments of the tax policy reform known as the London Congestion Charge (LCC). Results indicate that TfL has utilized power, legitimacy, and urgency as its main policy management tactics with a significant emphasis on legitimatizing the LCC and its subsequent policy amendments. The second study draws on social exchange theory (SET) to reexamine the relationship between corporations and legislators during tax policy processes. Data for the study come from publicly available political action committee (PAC) contribution activities surrounding the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA07). By examining the endogeneity between legislators’ voting patterns and PAC contributions by corporations, this study aims to refine empirical work on corporate political strategy, especially as it relates to crucial tax provisions embedded within an intensely debated policy proposal. Using simultaneous equations modeling (SEM), results are consistent with SET showing that an implicit and reciprocal relationship exists between corporations and legislators. This relationship affects the interdependence of how legislators vote for public policies and the amount of corporations’ financial contributions to legislators. The third study investigates and aims to validate the empirical applicability of Dahan’s (2005) typology of political resources in explicating the political interactions between stakeholder groups and legislators in the development of EISA07. I discuss how and why the mode of operations and various political resources employed by stakeholder groups affected the iii final EISA07 language concerning domestic production deduction tax credits for the oil and gas industry. Publicly available data show that both supporting and opposing stakeholder groups employ tactics consistent with Dahan’s (2005) typology. However, both stakeholder groups tend to use an interactive or positive political approach to gain access and favor of legislators instead of an adversarial approach. Ultimately, the tax credits were preserved. Taken as a whole, the three studies advance the tax and public policy research literature in accounting by studying how and why relevant stakeholders affect the formation and ongoing management of public and tax policies

No abstract provided. / Thesis / Bachelor of Arts (BA) / Introduction: The study attempts to explain the geographical conditions in Westminster Township. Emphasis is placed on the relationship existing between the township and the city of London, the large metropolitan centre adjacent to it. The problem is attacked from a functional point of view. The physical geography of the township is described. However, since historical forces are recognized in any study of settlement, one chapter is devoted to historical geography. The following chapters are devoted to communications and land use patterns, both rural and urban. The thesis is changing interrelationship, between the city and the township. It shows clearly that the city does not terminate at its political boundary, but encroaches upon the adjacent rural township. The result is a change in the character of the township in the shape of an "Urban Fringe" specialized agriculture and new super imposition of communications.

This thesis seeks to examine the respective histories of London and Paris, two of the most influential and iconic cities in the world, in order to better understand how each respectively developed and their impact upon modern urban planning. Comparisons are made between, not only the history, but also the noble classes and gentry, religions, and cultural values which influenced the development of each capital city. Additionally, this thesis also seeks to explore how the development of Paris can still greatly assist modern developers in the twenty-first century.