Mapping the Intercounty Transmission Risk of COVID-19 in New York State

Social Science Research Network published a piece over COVID-19 and includes three UT Affiliates that is published on May 1, 2020.Office of the VP for Researc

Welcome Home Ramsey: Creating Housing Opportunities for All

Report completed by students enrolled in PA 5211: Land Use Planning, taught by Fernando Burga in fall 2017.This project was completed as part of the 2017-2018 Resilient Communities Project (rcp.umn.edu) partnership with the City of Ramsey. Ramsey's housing plan was last updated in 2008. The plan identified numerous strategies for achieving the City’s housing goals, including increased housing density, redeveloping underutilized land, and engaging underserved populations. Since then, the City has made good progress in terms of achieving its workforce and senior housing goals, but public support for some of the City’s other housing goals is not as strong. The City sought assistance developing a communication/outreach strategy to make the case for various housing types and the value they add to the community. Students in Dr. Fernando Burga’s Land Use Planning class analyzed housing needs in the community, identified three locations accessible to transit or jobs as potential locations for additional workforce and affordable housing, presented case studies of policy strategies to increase affordable housing, and made policy recommendations for the City going forward. The students’ final report is available.This project was supported by the Resilient Communities Project (RCP), a program at the University of Minnesota whose mission is to connect communities in Minnesota with U of MN faculty and students to advance community resilience through collaborative, course-based projects. RCP is a program of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA). More information at http://www.rcp.umn.edu

Shared Mobility Policy Guide

Professional paper for the fulfillment of the Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree.This report examines he potential impacts of shared mobility in the seven County Twin Cities Metro area. Much of the content builds on a 2017 report from the Shared Use Mobility Center, the Shared Mobility Action Plan. While people define the term shared mobility in many different ways, this report will define shared mobility as transportation options where the cost is shared among users, people do not own personal vehicles, and services provide flexible, short-term, on-demand trips

miR-144-3p Promotes Adipogenesis Through Releasing C/EBPα From Klf3 and CtBP2

MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a class of small non-coding RNAs, have been proved as novel and potent regulators of adipogenesis. A previous study has found out that miR-144-3p was a biomarker of type 2 diabetes, but the role of miR-144-3p in regulating adipogenesis was still unclear. In the present study, the expression of miR-144-3p increased in obese mice and during the 3T3-L1 differentiation process. Overexpression of miR-144-3p suppressed the expression of cell cycle regulatory factors and inhibited pre-adipocytes proliferation. Besides, overexpression of miR-144-3p accelerated lipid accumulation in adipocytes and positively regulated adipogenesis, which was also accompanied by increasing the expression of genes related to fatty acid synthesis and decreasing the expression of genes involved in fatty acid oxidation. Furthermore, luciferase activity assays indicated that miR-144-3p directly targeted Klf3 and CtBP2. The process was also confirmed by the mRNA and protein expression of Klf3 and CtBP2, which were suppressed by miR-144-3p. Furthermore, miR-144-3p targeting Klf3/CtBP2 would induce C/EBPα activity by releasing corepressors (Klf3 and CtBP2) from its promoter region. Moreover, we also observed that miR-144-3p could promote adipogenesis in mice injected with miR-144-3p agomir through tail-vein injection. Taken together, these results support that miR-144-3p can facilitate adipogenesis both in vitro and in vivo, which implies that miR-144-3p could be a target for therapeutic intervention in obesity and metabolic syndrome in the future

Opportunities and challenges for shared micromobility planning : a case study of Austin dockless scooter-share program

Shared Micromobility consists of a variety of shared, non-automotive personal modes, from traditional station-based bike-sharing to cutting-edge dockless electric scooters (e-scooters). The rise of shared micromobility in the U.S. was attributed to scooter-share programs in many cities such as Austin and Los Angeles. Research gaps exist in shared micromobility travel behavior for many reasons. First, it has been well integrated with other high-tech innovations such as smartphones and mobile payment. Thus, the travel data is passively collected from location-based devices rather than travel surveys. Second, it is a privatized business in which private vendors own, operate, and manage fleets based on profit-driven business models. As a result, transportation planners have limited data access and oversight power in decision-making. The booming yet under-regulated market has led to adverse social outcomes threatening city aesthetics and transportation equity due to overcrowding vehicles on streets and irresponsible riding and parking behaviors. The dissertation uses the scooter-share program in Austin, Texas, and applies data-driven approaches in urban informatic to examine e-scooter travel behavior at a small scale as well as its transportation equity implications. Research findings show that scooter travelers choose shorter routes based on when and where they travel. In addition, stores with higher spatiotemporal correlation with scooter use tend to attract visitors who reside in lower-income neighborhoods and spend less time during their visits. Interestingly, statistical results show an insignificant difference in visitors’ home distance. The equity analysis suggests that Austin scooter-share has the potential to benefit carless populations by deploying more vehicles in their neighborhoods. However, public space obstruction by overcrowding scooters imposed more mobility difficulties on people with physical difficulties and older populations. The dissertation contributes to the field by shedding light on the opportunities and challenges in shared micromobility planning under a larger umbrella of transportation planning.Community and Regional Plannin

Understanding the Shared E-scooter Travels in Austin, TX

This publication is by UT affiliates that was featured in the September Good Systems Network Digest in 2020.Office of the VP for Researc

Mapping the Spatiotemporal Patterns of COVID-19 Risk in the United States

You are viewing a past publication from the Good Systems Network Digest in July 2020.Office of the VP for Researc

Understanding E-Scooter Incidents Patterns in Street Network Perspective: A Case Study of Travis County, Texas

Dockless electric scooter (E-scooters) services have emerged in the United States as an alternative form of micro transit in the past few years. With the increasing popularity of E-scooters, it is important for cities to manage their usage to create and maintain safe urban environments. However, E-scooter safety in U.S. urban environments remains unexplored due to the lack of traffic and crash data related to E-scooters. Our study objective is to better understand E-scooter crashes from a street network perspective. New parcel level street network data are obtained from Zillow and curated in Geographic Information System (GIS). We conducted local Moran’s I and independent Z-test to compare where and how the street network that involves E-scooter crash differs spatially with traffic incidents. The analysis results show that there is a spatial correlation between E-scooter crashes and traffic incidents. Nevertheless, E-scooter crashes do not fully replicate characteristics of traffic incidents. Compared to traffic incidents, E-scooter incidents tend to occur adjacent to traffic signals and on primary roads

Modeling the Spatial Factors of COVID-19 in New York City

You are viewing a publication from UT Affiliates that was in the Good Systems Network Digest in May 2020.Office of the VP for Researc