Analyzing Accessibility Using Parcel Data: Is There Still an Access–Space Trade-Off in Long Beach,California?

This article analyzes the impact of changing housing and neighborhood characteristics on the accessibility of neighborhood businesses using Long Beach, California, as a case study. Although advocates of smart growth and New Urbanism encourage land use mixing, aggregate-level analysis can be too coarse to pick up on fine-grained aspects of urban streetscapes. This study uses assessor parcel records and a point-based business establishment data set to analyze city-wide patterns of accessibility from individual dwelling units to thirty-one types of neighborhood businesses, including grocery stores, service shops, drug stores, doctor's offices, and banks. Regression results compare parcel-level and neighborhood-level drivers of accessibility between 2006 and 2015 to gauge the aggregated effect of recent economic, demographic, and built environment changes on this aspect of urban spatial structure. Larger homes in older, multiunit buildings and higher income neighborhoods show substantial increases in accessibility to most establishment types, suggesting a trend toward both greater accessibility and larger dwelling units—despite the traditional trade-off between access and space. Although gradual increases in home and business density increased overall accessibility over this period, weaker neighborhood-level results indicate that this trend is less pronounced in high-poverty and non-white areas.     

THE CANON OF MARINE TRANSGRESSION IN POST-PALAEOZOIC TIMES.

Ⅰ. Introduction In attempting to attack the fundamental problem ot geotectonics, the writer has endeavoured to show, along very broad lines, that the more important marine transgressions in the Northern Hemisphere during the Palaeozoic Era     

Diurnal and Seasonal Variations of Thermal Stratification and Vertical Mixing in a Shallow Fresh Water Lake

Among several influential factors, the geographical position and depth of a lake determine its thermal structure. In temperate zones, shallow lakes show significant differences in thermal stratification compared to deep lakes. Here, the variation in thermal stratification in Lake Taihu, a shallow fresh water lake, is studied systematically. Lake Taihu is a warm polymictic lake whose thermal stratification varies in short cycles of one day to a few days. The thermal stratification in Lake Taihu has shallow depths in the upper region and a large amplitude in the temperature gradient, the maximum of which exceeds 5°C m^–1. The water temperature in the entire layer changes in a relatively consistent manner. Therefore, compared to a deep lake at similar latitude, the thermal stratification in Lake Taihu exhibits small seasonal differences, but the wide variation in the short term becomes important. Shallow polymictic lakes share the characteristic of diurnal mixing. Prominent differences on the duration and frequency of long-lasting thermal stratification are found in these lakes, which may result from the differences of local climate, lake depth, and fetch. A prominent response of thermal stratification to weather conditions is found, being controlled by the stratifying effect of solar radiation and the mixing effect of wind disturbance. Other than the diurnal stratification and convection, the representative responses of thermal stratification to these two factors with contrary effects are also discussed. When solar radiation increases, stronger wind is required to prevent the lake from becoming stratified. A daily average wind speed greater than 6 m s^–1 can maintain the mixed state in Lake Taihu. Moreover, wind-induced convection is detected during thermal stratification. Due to lack of solar radiation, convection occurs more easily in nighttime than in daytime. Convection occurs frequently in fall and winter, whereas long-lasting and stable stratification causes less convection in summer.     

Evaluation of the 2.5-km Cloud-Resolving Storm Simulator in Predicting Local Afternoon Convection during the Summer in Taiwan

The forecast of summertime afternoon convection by numerical weather prediction models is highly challenging because of its weak dynamical forcing, small scale, and low predictability. To assess such an ability for future improvement, we evaluated the performance of the 2.5-km Cloud-Resolving Storm Simulator (CReSS) in predicting afternoon convection in Taiwan under weak synoptic conditions during the summers (May–October) of 2011 and 2012. For a total of 89 target days, daily CReSS forecasts in three ranges, starting at 0000 UTC (0800 LST) on the same day (D0), the day before (D-1), and 2 days before (D-2), were examined. With regard to the occurrence of afternoon convection anywhere in Taiwan, the predictive skill of the model was considerably high, as evidenced by the threat score (TS) and post-agreement (PA) of D0 (D-1) forecasts reaching 0.75 and 0.90 (0.50 and 0.79), respectively. While the score values decrease when Taiwan is divided into four regions (i.e., the forecast must be in the correct region to be considered a hit), the TS and PA for D0 (D-2) forecasts remain respectable at 0.44 and 0.73 (0.29 and 0.59). Among the four regions, the TS (0.48–0.65) and PA (0.77–0.83) for Central Taiwan are the highest with the best predictive skill. Overall, while the prediction of afternoon convection in the correct region is challenging, the 2.5-km CReSS model has considerable skill (TS ~ 0.30) even 2 days in advance, and can provide useful guidance for afternoon convection in Taiwan.     

Climate change influences on pollinator,forest, and farm interactions across a climate gradient

Improved cookstoves have been identified in Mexico as a key opportunity to advance sustainable local development priorities in disadvantaged regions while mitigating climate change. This paper reviews the Patsari Cookstove Project initiated in 2003 by an NGO, Interdisciplinary Group on Appropriate Rural Technology (GIRA). The project applied an interdisciplinary and participative user-centered approach to disseminate improved cookstoves in rural Mexico, with a special focus on indigenous and poor rural communities. To date, GIRA and the Patsari Network have disseminated thousands of stoves using a “training to trainers” model. Benefits from the project include tangible improvements in users’ health, as well as savings in time and money expended on fuelwood procurement and use. The project has also documented substantive environmental benefits from significant mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with traditional open fires. To sustain scaling up efforts over the long-term, two networks have been created: The Patsari Network, which includes several organizations promoting Patsari stoves for household users, and the Tsiri Network, which supports local food security and the empowerment of indigenous women through the promotion of institutional cookstoves. Through appropriately designed and implemented local interventions, the project demonstrates that the goals of advancing sustainable local development in rural areas and climate change mitigation may not be contradictory, and may in fact reinforce one another.     

Identification of the optimal integration of the hydrologic model with meteorology data using the advanced GIS object-oriented programming

An object-oriented framework called GIS and Hydrologic Information System Modeling Object (GHISMO) that is tightly coupled with a prototype geographic information system (GIS), is presented in this research. The proposed GHISMO framework is used to simulate a hydrologic system on the base of the storage-release concept and with multiple weather data such as gage and NEXRAD data. Both quantitative and qualitative results of simulation for the Pleasant Run Creek and Little Buck Creek watersheds in Indiana (USA) demonstrate the method prospects.     

The modifiable areal unit problem in hedonic house-price models

When geographically aggregated data are included in hedonic models, the resulting coefficients are biased by the spatial scale and spatial configuration of variable measurement. We explore the effects of this modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP) within the context of hedonic price models with an individual-level dependent variable. Specifically, we developed standard and spatial hedonic regression models in order to examine the effects of the MAUP on model fit and coefficient estimates. Our empirical analysis documents several significant scale and zoning effects in the hedonic modeling framework. First, neighborhood characteristics are clearly important in efforts to improve model fit—and they are more significant contributors in the standard model than in the spatial hedonic model. For aggregation scale, the model fit change of the standard model is relatively large, whereas the change is more modest for spatial models. The patterns of change in model fit for standard and spatial hedonic models clearly diverge from one another, implying the existence of a scale level showing a maximum functional range of the submarket on which scale dependencies are expected to have an impact. Regarding the zoning effect, the model fits for both standard and spatial hedonic models vary according to the submarket systems.     

A Measure of Magnetic Field Discontinuity

In this paper we introduce a measure of magnetic field discontinuity, MAD, defined as Maximum Angular Difference between two adjacent magnetic field vectors. To examine the characteristics of the MAD, we have considered several active region models having a quadrupolar field configuration and computed MADs over these active regions by approximating the 3-D magnetic fields as an ensemble of charge potential fields or linear force-free fields. The computed MAD fields are studied in comparison with other flare activity indicators such as separators. It is found that (1) the region of high level MAD corresponds well with the separator, or practically the intersection of the separator with the plane of measurement, (2) it singles out local discontinuities of magnetic fields, and (3) the MAD can also be a measure of the evolutionary status of an active region.An observational test has been made for 2-D MADs, using the Yohkoh SXT observation of a flare in AR 6919 and the vector magnetogram taken at the Mees Solar Observatory during this flare activity. The high level contours of 2-D MAD are found to trace well the observed soft X-ray bright points, which indicates that the MAD could serve as a good flare activity indicator.     

Probabilistic corrosion rate estimation model for longitudinal strength members of bulk carriers

Many bulk carrier losses have been reported of late, and one of the possible causes of such casualties is thought to be the structural failure of aging hulls in rough weather. Clearly, in such cases, vessels that start out being adequate somehow become marginal later in life. Fatigue and corrosion-related potential problems may be the most important factors affecting such age related vessel damage. With respect to fatigue, extensive studies have been done worldwide both experimentally and theoretically, and the results have been applied to some extent. However, in the case of corrosion effects, additional research is still needed to better understand, clarify and address the various strength uncertainties and their effects on structural behaviour. This paper develops a probabilistic corrosion rate estimation model for the longitudinal strength members of bulk carriers. The model is based on available statistical data for corrosion of existing bulk carriers. The corrosion data collected are documented for future use.     

Eutrophication Dynamics of Tolo Harbour, Hong Kong

The time and spatial variation of water quality in Tolo Harbour, a eutrophic landlocked semi-enclosed bay frequented by algal blooms, is studied using a dynamic eutrophication model. Hourly changes of tide levels and currents are computed by a link-node model assuming M₂ tidal forcing. Phytoplankton growth is assumed to be limited by solar radiation, nitrogen and temperature. The model incorporates light acclimation by algae, self-shading, photosynthetic production, nutrient uptake, and a dynamic determination of the carbon to chlorophyll ratio. In particular, sediment-water-pollutant interactions are modelled via an anaerobic benthic layer segment. Using recorded pollution loads and environmental forcing as input, the model predictions of daily-averaged water quality are compared with the extensive water quality monitoring data of the Environmental Protection Department (EPD). The predicted spatial distribution and trends of algal biomass, inorganic nitrogen, dissolved oxygen (DO), as well as sediment oxygen demand (SOD), are in general agreement with field observations.