Transit-Oriented Brownfield Redevelopment

Best Poster Award, Department of Economics, Fall 2019Brownfield properties are properties wherein future use is inhibited either by the presence or perceived presence of harmful pollutants. As a consequence, these properties are difficult to develop and prospective developers require sufficient positive incentives in order to be attracted to these projects. To investigate the extent to which public transit can act as an amenity for these properties, this study examines the relationship between commuter rail transit stations and brownfield property redevelopment rates in Mecklenburg County, NC using both a linear probability model and a propensity score matching approach. The analysis results indicate that there is indeed a relationship between light rail and brownfield redevelopment, but the direction of the relationship depends on the analysis technique used.No embargoAcademic Major: Economic

Application of local and non-local approaches to multiple fatigue crack initiation and propagation

Fatigue strength conditions presented in terms of normalized equivalent stress functionals defined on loading processes are used to unite the stages of material damage with fatigue crack initiation and multiple crack propagation under arbitrary loading history. Examples of employing the local form of the functionals associated with the Palmgren-Miner linear damage accumulation rule and the power-type S–N diagram to a periodic crack system are given and shortcomings of the local approach are pointed out. A non-local approach free from the shortcomings is described. Equations for curvilinear crack growth rate vectors taking into account the whole damage history ahead of the crack are presented for multiple cracks under mixed-mode loadin

CONTRASTING EFFECTS OF AN MDM2 FUNCTIONAL POLYMORPHISM ON TUMOR PHENOTYPES

Cancer predisposition by the cooperation of genetic variants, such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), may be of much greater significance to public health than previously appreciated. Functional polymorphisms are genetic variants that alter gene function. Meta-analyses associate many functional polymorphisms with cancer risk. The MDM2 SNP309G allele is a cancer-associated functional polymorphism positioned in the MDM2 P2 promoter that enhances transcription factor SP1 binding, resulting in elevated levels of MDM2 concomitant with decreased p53 tumor-suppressor activity. Mdm2SNP309G/G mice are more prone to spontaneous tumor formation than Mdm2SNP309T/T mice, providing direct evidence for the impact of this SNP on tumor development. We examined the impact of SNP309 on cancer risk in response to environmental factors by treating SNP309 mice with ionizing radiation, UVB, or Benzo(a)pyrene. The results show that SNP309G cooperates with ionizing radiation to exacerbate tumor development. Contrastingly, ultraviolet B light or Benzo(a)pyrene exposure of skin indicates that SNP309G allele protects against squamous cell carcinoma susceptibility. These contradicting differences led us to interrogate the mechanism by which Mdm2 SNP309 regulates tumor susceptibility in a tissue-specific manner. The assessment of potential transcriptional regulators in ENCODE ChIP-seq database identified transcriptional repressor E2F6 as a possible negative regulator of MDM2 expression. Our data show that E2F6 protein is expressed at higher levels in skin keratinocytes of SNP309 mice as compared to lymphatic tissues. Furthermore, E2F6 binds and suppresses Mdm2 expression in cells harboring the SNP309G allele but not the SNP309T allele. Thus, the Mdm2 SNP309G allele exhibits tissue-specific regulation and differentially impacts cancer risk