Zusammenfassung: Boomer & Laver (1968: 4) definieren einen Versprecher als “an involuntary deviation in performance from the speaker’s current phonological, grammatical or lexical intention”. Aus diesem Begriff lassen sich drei Standpunkte folgern: Erstens, dass der Sprecher in der Regel ein phonologisches, grammatisches und/oder lexikalisches Intendiertes am Sprechen hat; zweitens, dass er sein Intendiertes mit der möglichst geringsten Anzahl von Unklarheiten zu äußern versucht; und drittens, dass der Sprecher immer unter dem Risiko steht, von seinem Intendierten abzuweichen. Beim Sprechen läuft der Sprecher die fast unvermeidbare Gefahr, Sprachproduktionsfehler bei seinen Gesprächsbeiträgen und in seinen Äußerungen zu begehen. Die Versprecher können auf verschiedenen Ebenen der Sprache auftauchen, bspw. auf der morphologischen, auf der syntaktischen oder auf der phonologischen Ebene. Mehrere Sprachwissenschaftler, unter anderen Meringer & Mayer (1978), del Viso (2002) und Wiedenmann (1992) haben sich mit den Versprechern verschiedener Sprachen beschäftigt. Diese Autoren berücksichtigten bei ihren Forschungen spontane, erzeugte, vollständige, unvollständige, in Korpora registrierte Versprecher, u.a. (vgl. Meringer & Mayer 1978; del Viso 2002; Wiedenmann 1992; Baars, Motley et al. 1975). Gleichwohl ist der Vergleich zwischen Versprechern im Deutschen und im Spanischen noch nicht näher untersucht worden. Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit einer linguistischen und psycholinguistischen Analyse von Sprachproduktionsfehlern in der deutschen und spanischen Sprache. Da das linguistische Feld der Versprecher aus zahlreichen Ansichten verschiedener Autoren analysiert worden ist, wird mit diesem Sprachvergleich versucht, die Versprecher in beiden Sprachen unter einer besonderen, ähnlich gestalteten kommunikativen Situation zu erforschen. Es wird außerdem versucht grob zu erkunden, inwiefern sich die Lapsus Linguae in einer bestimmten kommunikativen Praktik in den beiden Sprachen unterscheiden kann. Die in dieser Arbeit analysierten Sprechfehler werden aus einer Videoreihe gesammelt, in der es sich um spontane Befragungen von Passanten auf der Straße handelt (siehe Punkte 2.1. und 2.2.). Im ersten Teil wird der theoretische Hintergrund dargelegt. In diesem Teil werden zuerst die Versprecher als ein Phänomen der gesprochenen Sprache erläutert. Danach versucht man die Grenze zwischen den Lapsus Linguae, den Formulierungsproblemen und anderen Phänomenen der prototypischen Mündlichkeit festzustellen. Dann wird ein Überblick über den Begriff Versprecher im linguistischen Bereich vorgestellt. Der theoretische Hintergrund wird mit der Klassifizierung von Versprechern abgeschlossen. Im zweiten Teil wird eine empirische Untersuchung zu den Versprechern in der deutschen und in der spanischen Sprache durchgeführt. Dabei wird das Material beschrieben, aus welchem die Sprechfehler gesammelt werden. Weiterhin wird eine Erklärung der Vorgehensweise für die auf diesem Material basierende Studie dargelegt. Im letzten Teil werden die Ergebnisse und eine Analyse zu diesen präsentiert. Schließlich werden die Schlussfolgerungen der vorliegenden Arbeit dargelegt. Resumen: Los errores de habla han sido estudiados por numerosos autores en diferentes idiomas, como por ejemplo Nora Wiedenmann en alemán (1992), Susana del Viso en español (2002), Merrill Garrett (1992) en inglés, entre otros. Estos errores conocidos también como Lapsus Linguæ han sido investigados desde sus diferentes categorías, a saber ‘errores espontáneos, provocados, completos, incompletos, registrados en corpus’, etc. Sin embargo, hasta ahora no se han realizado análisis detallados de comparación de los errores de producción del lenguaje en las lenguas española y alemana. Este es, pues, el objetivo de este trabajo, en el que se presenta un análisis lingüístico y psicolingüístico de los errores de producción del lenguaje en ambos idiomas. Debido a que el campo lingüístico de los Lapsus Linguæ puede ser tratado desde numerosos puntos de vista y es un campo aún en constante investigación, se realiza en el presente trabajo una recopilación de dichos errores a partir de una situación comunicativa específica, la cual ha sido producida de forma similar para ambas lenguas. Esta situación consiste en encuestas o mini entrevistas pertenecientes a un proyecto lingüístico originado por estudiantes alemanes en el año 2006. Como siguiente objetivo se busca indagar si existen diferencias a nivel subléxico, léxico y supraléxico entre ambas lenguas en los errores de habla en prácticas comunicativas específicas. El presente análisis psicolingüístico está basado en aspectos morfosintácticos de los Lapsus Linguæ e incluye tanto el análisis teórico de dichos errores, en el que se presentan teorías de varios autores respecto a los errores de habla, como un análisis empírico en el que se recolectan 299 nuevos errores en alemán y español antes no estudiados.

En este trabajo se investigan las fórmulas rutinas en el marco de la fraseología contrastiva del alemán y el español, en su variante colombiana. El análisis fraseolingüístico aquí propuesto se basa en un corpus contrastivo, construido a partir de la subtitulación alemana de la película colombiana “La Estrategia del Caracol” y su versión original. Adicionalmente, se analizan algunos componentes no verbales de la situación en donde tiene lugar la fórmula rutinaria, tales como los gestos. El resultado de este análisis constituye la base de estrategias didácticas para aprendices del alemán en Colombia. Teniendo en cuenta esa importancia, se aprovecha el potencial de los medios audiovisuales para la transmisión de unidades lingüísticas.

The building sector plays a significant role regarding CO2 generation in the UK, accounting for 37%. Efforts have been oriented to lower the energy consumption by increasing the efficiency of conditioning systems and by integrating smart designs that lower the energy requirements. The newest storage facility from NMS was designed to use energy efficiently to provide the necessary environmental conditions to approximately 10 million items with specific climate conditions. However, the designers are interested to know how the building is performing and how the energy usage could be lowered. In this report, an assessment of this distinctive building with a dual nature of a storage facility coexisting with a research workplace is conducted. Initially, it was unforeseen how much energy had been used by each piece of equipment; given the type of data recorded, the assessment is performed in a detailed fashion to provide the figures that could help to make decisions to modify the energy usage. Additionally, even though the building was designed using efficient equipment, with air-tightness that was classified as better than typical and a good isolated envelop, opportunities were still found to improve even more its operative functions and hence to reduce the annual cost of energy and the CO2 emissions generation. The results show how to reduce the energy consumption at practically zero cost by making more flexible the temperature settings and by modifying the control strategy, resulting mainly in savings up to 35% in gas consumption. Another potential solution is provided by calculating the energy that a PV array could harvest. Two other recommendations that cannot be implemented are assessed. More elaborated strategies can be analysed and implemented when environmental-friendly buildings are designed. 

La tesis de maestría cuestiona los siguientes dos supuestos comunes en el tema de las drogas y las relaciones políticas internacionales: primero, que siempre se pueden esperar conflictos diplomáticos como resultado del fracaso de los intentos por reducir el tráfico de drogas ilegales, y Segundo, que el conflicto predomina entre países si tienen que tratar el tema de las drogas. El objetivo de la tesis es explicar por qué surge la crisis diplomática entre Estados Unidos y Colombia en 1995-1997 y no antes si se tiene en cuenta la similitud de las condiciones materiales, en términos de la gravedad del problema del narcotráfico y su grado de penetración en las instituciones colombianas, entre la administración Samper (1994-1998) y otras administraciones anteriores. Uno de los resultados importantes de la tesis es hallar la existencia de cooperación anti-drogas a nivel operativo al tiempo que se fractura la relación diplomática.

The construction industry is well known to have many uncertain events during its construction process. Projects within this industry are exposed to a higher degree of risk, being vulnerable to achieving the project’s objectives in terms of time, cost and quality. For this reason, risk must be managed to minimise possible adverse impacts. The process of managing risk requires human judgement, thus being influenced by a construction professional’s risk attitude and perception. The aim of this research is to investigate the effects of a construction professionals risk attitude in their bid decision making. For this purpose, this study will consist of a primary data source obtained through a literature review and a secondary approach through a mixed research method, involving semi-structured interviews with professionals involved in bid decision making to collect new data. The study indicated that an individual’s professional experience and company’s culture are the two main factors to affect an individual’s risk attitude, though it was found the recession in 2008 had a great impact in these. The recession reshaped the whole construction industry’s risk attitude, as the market condition and the global economy became the dictators as to the risks a company had to take to survive. It was established risk attitude is a cyclical aspect influenced by external and internal factors, both being greatly affected by the market and the country’s economic condition. The research findings provided an in-depth exploratory study of an individual’s risk attitude and behaviour under competitive bidding, leading to understand the relationship between these two aspects.  

From an economic point of view, the bad loans have been considered as a key factor in banking crises. In recent years, the European debt crisis and the following recession, have increased loans defaults, specifically in Spain and Italy, causing significant losses for banks. In this analysis the main macroeconomic determinants of Non-Performing Loans (NPL) will be studied over the period from January 2004 to March 2012. Separate analyses will be conducted for Spain and Italy considering that these countries have one of the largest amounts of bad loans in Europe, as well as deteriorated macroeconomic indicators during recent years. The paper has been organised in the following way: in the chapter entitled ‘literature review’, the most important facts about the macroeconomic variables will be analysed focusing on NPL for Italy and Spain. I will move on to describe the main literature on determinants of Non-Performing Loans. Econometric literature will also be discussed, with special emphasis on time series procedures for macroeconomic variables. This section is important in order to determine the variables and to be aware of atypical data in the time series. Previous research in this field using the same or similar methodology additionally corroborates its efficiency and aptness for use in this paper. Secondly, the variables used in this analysis will be explained bearing in mind the literature before mentioned. The econometric methodology and procedures used to obtain econometric results will then be presented in detail. Lastly, the results will be carefully analysed for Spain and Italy respectively, and conclusions regarding the determinants of Non-Performing Loans in these two countries will be drawn.

Thought the years, there have been improvements in the management of construction projects; however, the problems of cost overruns are still a critical issue in the construction industry. For this reason, this paper attempt to identify the main causes of cost overruns in construction projects in the United Kingdom and the Critical Success Factors [CSFs] that can help prevent these causes. This research carried out a literature review which helped to find the main causes of cost overruns in construction projects. In addition, the author also reviews some existent literature regarding CSFs. Most of this literature is concentrated on the Factors that influence the overall cost performance of projects; however no many studies have been conducted to identify the CSFs that have an influence in the cost performance of construction projects. For this reason, this dissertation aims to fill this gap, attempting to identify those factors that can prevent poor cost performance of projects. Though a positive approach, a multi-case study method was performed in this research. The multiple case methods was constituted of 6 different projects in the construction industry constructed by companies from the UK. Hence, two different hypotheses were tested and the conclusion suggested that there are certain Critical Success Factors that can help prevent the occurrence of cost overruns in construction projects in the UK. This exploratory research has not only filled the gap in the CSFs’ literature, but it has also suggest a list of CSFs that can be used to improve the cost performance of construction projects in construction companies and in this way avoid or reduce the occurrence of cost overrun.

Lately, the Colombian government has opted for military oppression as the main route towards national security. However, recent events have shown that new post-conflict regions in Colombia are not necessarily violence- nor conflict-free scenarios. The institutional, social and economical instability of these post-conflict zones, as well as the high profitability of drug production, have promoted the reappearance of violent groups, generally led by previous mercenaries. In addition, under the actual Colombian peace-policies, the environmental security in post-conflict regions is not as secure as it should be. Many authors have argued that the economic reactivation in post-conflict scenarios could impose more threats to natural ecosystems than the economic stagnation typical of times of war. Then, it is important to look for new and effective alternatives to development, seeking to promote “sustainable peace” (i.e. social, economic and environmental long-term peace-conditions) in post-conflict regions in Colombia. This exploratory research suggests that natural resources in Colombia -besides bolstering belligerent groups- could be the medium for facilitating and maintaining peace. It proposes, for instance, that the correct management of natural resources through Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes have a threefold potential. Firstly, to provide social, environmental and economic stabilization in post-conflict regions in Colombia. Secondly, to displace illegality and violence; and thirdly, to promote environmental citizenship for the alleviation of marginalization and as an alternative way toward national security.

In this master thesis were characterized two highly porous media and a conduit in sandstone with special focus in the transition region between the laminar and turbulent states. As porous media were used glass beads and coarse sand of similar size, 2 and 1.9 mm respectively; for the laboratory work was used a setup where was possible to control the discharge and was measured the hydraulic head. Laminar flow ceases at Reynolds number of 0.25 in glass beads and 0.21 in coarse sand. The flow follows the same pathway between laminar and transitional, without regard if the velocity was increasing or decreasing. A conduit of 5 mm diameter was drilled in a fragment of sandstone for the experiments. The discharge and head losses through the conduit were measured. It was possible to establish two critical Reynolds values, 365 and 3060, for the state change between laminar to transitional and transitional to turbulent. A hysteretic behavior was observed when the flow switches between laminar and transitional. All the results were modeled using the Conduit Flow Process Mode 2 and compared with the experimental data. For porous media there is not a good agreement between the outputs of the model and the measured data.

The protracted nature of the Colombian conflict has allowed the emergence of numerous attempts for its resolution (intense military offensives and different models of negotiation). Regarding the attempts of negotiation, some of them have resulted in durable peace agreements while others have failed during the process. For example, in 1991, the government negotiated the reincorporation into the political life of the guerrillas M-19 and EPL, and recently in 2002-2007, the government held a peace process with the AUC paramilitary group, which produced the demobilization of approximately 40.000 rebels. However, the scenery of resolution with two remaining guerrillas (FARC and ELN) is different, after more than 26 years of failed negotiations and tough military offensives; it has not been possible to settle the conflict with them. What explains the different results in the peace processes with the armed groups? I suggest that in order to identify opportunities for negotiations and more effective peace processes, states and third parties, should regard more seriously the character of the different armed groups (motivation, leadership, strategies, social composition, organizational structure, etc). Therefore, by doing a comparative analysis of the AUC and FARC peace processes. I found out that: 1. the type of violence and financial sources are not determinant factors to reach a negotiated settlement with rebel groups. It is false that is more difficult to negotiate with armed groups pursuing high benefits from war, at least not in Colombia. 2. That the degree of task cohesion, the group cohesiveness, and social support are extremely relevant to the state engage and manage possible crisis and setbacks during the negotiations. Armed groups are different and those differences have positive and negative impacts when negotiating with them.