A spatio-temporal model of housing prices based on individual sales transactions over time

A spatio-temporal model of housing price trends is developed that focuses on individual housing sales over time. The model allows for both the spatio-temporal lag effects of previous sales in the vicinity of each housing sale, and for general autocorrelation effects over time. A key feature of this model is the recognition of the unequal spacing between individual housing sales over time. Hence the residuals are modeled as a first-order autoregressive process with unequally spaced events. The maximum-likelihood estimation of this model is developed in detail, and tested in terms of simulations based on selected data. In addition, the model is applied to a small data set in the Philadelphia area.     

AXIOM: advanced X-ray imaging of the magnetosphere

Planetary plasma and magnetic field environments can be studied in two complementary ways—by in situ measurements, or by remote sensing. While the former provide precise information about plasma behaviour, instabilities and dynamics on local scales, the latter offers the global view necessary to understand the overall interaction of the magnetospheric plasma with the solar wind. Some parts of the Earth’s magnetosphere have been remotely sensed, but the majority remains unexplored by this type of measurements. Here we propose a novel and more elegant approach employing remote X-ray imaging techniques, which are now possible thanks to the relatively recent discovery of solar wind charge exchange X-ray emissions in the vicinity of the Earth’s magnetosphere. In this article we describe how an appropriately designed and located X-ray telescope, supported by simultaneous in situ measurements of the solar wind, can be used to image the dayside magnetosphere, magnetosheath and bow shock, with a temporal and spatial resolution sufficient to address several key outstanding questions concerning how the solar wind interacts with the Earth’s magnetosphere on a global level. Global images of the dayside magnetospheric boundaries require vantage points well outside the magnetosphere. Our studies have led us to propose ‘AXIOM: Advanced X-ray Imaging of the Magnetosphere’, a concept mission using a Vega launcher with a LISA Pathfinder-type Propulsion Module to place the spacecraft in a Lissajous orbit around the Earth–Moon L1 point. The model payload consists of an X-ray Wide Field Imager, capable of both imaging and spectroscopy, and an in situ plasma and magnetic field measurement package. This package comprises a Proton-Alpha Sensor, designed to measure the bulk properties of the solar wind, an Ion Composition Analyser, to characterise the minor ion populations in the solar wind that cause charge exchange emission, and a Magnetometer, designed to measure the strength and direction of the solar wind magnetic field. We also show simulations that demonstrate how the proposed X-ray telescope design is capable of imaging the predicted emission from the dayside magnetosphere with the sensitivity and cadence required to achieve the science goals of the mission.     

Thrust tectonics in Timor

Recently it has been argued that the structure of the island of Timor can be interpreted without invoking the concept of major overthrust‐faulting. Using evidence from the Maubisse area of eastern Timor, Grady (1975) has suggested that the relationship between contiguous rock units in that area may be interpreted either as an unconformity or as steeply dipping fault‐planes. In the present account interpretations of the structure of Timor are reviewed and the concept of overthrusting is reconsidered. It is concluded that the structure may only be interpreted in terms of a series of overlapping thrust slices resting on folded sediments of the Australian continental shelf. The lowest thrust sheet, the Kolbano thrust sheet is composed of internally deformed deep‐water calcilutites. It is followed to the north by the Lolotoi thrust sheet, made up of a complex group of crystalline rocks varying from granulite to slate, together with unmetamorphosed ophiolites, clastic sediments, and massive Miocene limestones. Overlying this group to the north is the Maubisse‐Aileu thrust sheet composed of Permian crinoidal limestones and volcanics in the south, passing northwards into shales and sandstones. Within this unit there is also a marked increase in deformation and metamorphism from south to north. Slates in the south pass into mica schists, psammites, marbles, and hornblende schists of the amphibolite facies on the north coast of eastern Timor near Manatutu. A further thrust‐slice composed of ophiolites rests on this thrust unit on the north coast of western Timor between Wini and Atapupu.

The composition, structural state, and metamorphic grade of the rocks composing each of these thrust slices is described. The detailed relationships of the thrust units, including those of the Maubisse area, in the neighbourhood of the thrust planes is reconsidered. The case for the concept of major overthrusting is restated, both from regional considerations and from new evidence obtained during recent field mapping. This interpretation is placed in the context of a collision between the Australian continental margin and a detached portion of the Asiatic continental margin during the Cainozoic Era.     

Functioning of a karst aquifer from S Spain under highly variable climate conditions,deduced from hydrochemical records

Over a period of three hydrological years during which precipitation was highly variable, measurements of discharge, electrical conductivity, temperature and chemical components of the water at the Cañamero spring (southern Spain) were taken in order to characterise the hydrogeological functioning of the karst aquifer that it drains. The results obtained from analysis of the frequency distribution of electrical conductivity data revealed histograms with a plurimodal morphology (up to 5 modes) and a range of variation that increased with greater pluviometry during the study period. The discharge from this spring increased sharply a few days after major rainfall episodes and, when the discharge reached a value of approximately 3.73 m³/s, an overflow spring started to function. During high-water periods, there were sudden and large falls in EC, temperature and all the chemical components dissolved in the water. This high variability reflects the predominance of groundwater flow through karst drains, a typical feature of conduit flow systems. The considerable hydrochemical heterogeneity observed is caused by the mobilisation of important volumes of recharge waters from shallow areas of the aquifer (soil, epikarst) towards the discharge point, with greater participation of the unsaturated zone during high-water conditions, and a more active role played by the saturated zone during low-water conditions. In karst systems such as the one drained by the Cañamero spring, it is important to monitor several responses (hydrodynamic, hydrothermal, hydrochemical, etc.), with an appropriate sampling frequency and under different hydrometeorological conditions, in order to achieve an adequate hydrological characterisation. This is fundamental for planning, management and protection of groundwater in karst aquifers.     

Sex Offender Residential Movement Patterns: A Markov Chain Analysis

This article introduces a new approach to the analysis of changes in sex offender residences over time. Using a Markov chain framework, we analyze residential movement patterns of registered sex offenders in Hamilton County, Ohio, over a three-year period (2005–2007). Results indicate a 46 percent reduction in offenders violating spatial restriction zone policy as compared to a counterfactual case where offenders move as a function of housing distributions. Strong legacy effects are also found as offenders previously in violation of restriction policies move into other restricted zones at a higher rate than offenders who were previously in compliance with the policy. Parcels that previously were home to registered offenders also continue to attract offenders in future periods. Although we find differences in the probabilities of attracting offenders for parcels outside and inside restricted zones that are consistent with offender restrictive policies, these differences are actually significantly smaller than what holds under the counterfactual. Parcels in restricted zones continue to attract offenders at a higher rate than expected, despite the policy restrictions.     

Shock and thermal history of Martian meteorite Allan Hills 84001 from transmission electron microscopy

Abstract— Microstructures in the Allan Hills 84001 meteorite were studied using optical and electron microscopy, putting emphasis on shock effects, which are widespread. Some orthopyroxene exhibits only (100) slip, but more typical grains suffered extensive slip, microfracturing, and frequently contain (100) clino‐inversion lamellae. In fracture zones, shock deformation of orthopyroxene has produced all three effects in profusion, together with intergranular pockets of orthopyroxene glass and intragranular glass lamellae, which were apparently created by shearing on low index planes, usually (100) or {110}. Both types of plane are loci that pseudo‐planar fractures tend to follow. Thus, the glass lamellae, which have not been observed in other meteorites, probably formed by frictional heating during the sliding of microscale corrugated surfaces, one over another, leading to local melting. We infer that the orthopyroxene glass and the fracture zones both formed from shear stresses created by strong shock. Ubiquitous undeformed micrometer and submicrometer euhedral chromites in orthopyroxene and plagioclase glasses and carbonate probably crystallized after shock heating and fracture zone formation. Nanocrystals of eskolaite (Cr₂O₃) coating silica glass grains are probably also a result of shock‐induced thermal decomposition of chromite. Iron sulfides (pyrite and pyrrhotite were identified) tended to be associated with plagioclase glass. A carbonate disk showing no evidence for shock deformation had a substructure of elongated, slightly misoriented subcells in the exterior; interior regions had more eqiaxed subcells. Both microstructures probably formed during growth, but the conditions are undetermined. Chemical composition varied on a micron scale, but the rim of the disk was more ferroan; oxide precipitates and voids were widely distributed as in fracture‐filling carbonates. If the fracture zones and opx glass are the result of strong shock, as we deduce, it is very unlikely that pores could have filled by carbonate long after the fracture zones formed. We infer that the carbonate, like the phosphate, olivine, pyrrhotite, eskolaite, and many euhedral, submicrometer chromites, crystallized during the final stages of the impact that created the fracture zones and glasses with compositions of plagioclase, silica, and orthopyroxene.     

Salt terrains of Iran

Salt only survives at outcrop in desert climates, and southern Iran has more than its share of salt mountains created by rising diapirs. With their white salt cliffs and creeping salt glaciers, these constitute amazing landscapes with collapsing dolines that feed into spectacularly decorated caves.     

First‐year sea ice spring melt transitions in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago from time‐series synthetic aperture radar data, 1992–2002

This paper synthesizes 10‐years' worth of interannual time‐series space‐borne ERS‐1 and RADARSAT‐1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data collected coincident with daily measurement of snow‐covered, land‐fast first‐year sea ice (FYI) geophysical and surface radiation data collected from the Seasonal Sea Ice Monitoring and Modeling Site, Collaborative‐Interdisciplinary Cryospheric Experiment and 1998 North Water Polynya study over the period 1992 to 2002. The objectives are to investigate the seasonal co‐relationship of the SAR time‐series dataset with selected surface mass (bulk snow thickness) and climate state variables (surface temperature and albedo) measured in situ for the purpose of measuring the interannual variability of sea ice spring melt transitions and validating a time‐series SAR methodology for sea ice surface mass and climate state parameter estimation. We begin with a review of the salient processes required for our interpretation of time‐series microwave backscatter from land‐fast FYI. Our results suggest that time‐series SAR data can reliably measure the timing and duration of surface albedo transitions at daily to weekly time‐scales and at a spatial scales that are on the order of hundreds of metres. Snow thickness on FYI immediately prior to melt onset explains a statistically significant portion of the variability in timing of SAR‐detected melt onset to pond onset for SAR time‐series that are made up of more than 25 images. Our results also show that the funicular regime of snowmelt, resolved in time‐series SAR data at a temporal resolution of approximately 2·5 images per week, is not detectable for snow covers less than 25 cm in thickness. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.