Why do many animals move with a predominance of roughly forward directions?

Animal movements can influence their ecology and demographics. Animal movements are often characterized by path structures with directional persistence. The extent to which directional persistence improves forage success is investigated in this paper using theoretical simulations. It is shown that a movement strategy with directional persistence enables simulated animals to find more forage as compared to a random movement strategy. Situations where resources are chosen with certainty (optimally) are even more successful. Choosing resource with certainty cannot result in directional persistence. However, in cases where animals choose with certainty adjacent cells with resource but continue in their existing direction if none of these have resources then results include directional persistence. It is posited here that this combined strategy is the most effective because if optimal foraging works it is optimally efficient but where foraging is sub-optimal, for a variety of reasons, directional persistence will benefit foraging

Depreciation Damages in Eminent Domain Proceedings

The individual\u27s right in eminent domain proceedings are spelled out by the United States Constitution-specifically, Amendment V, which provides that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. Of course, the seeming simplicity of this constitutional provision belies the complexities involved in its application. For example, it is well settled that just compensation for a given piece of property must be measured interms of the fair market value of that property. But market values of real estate are apt to fluctuate even under normal conditions, and their behavior when a public acquisition is in the offing can be chaotic. The problem the ourts face is in harnessing these economic forces in such a way that the individual property owner\u27s rights will be safeguarded. This note will examine how the courts have dealt with depreciation in general, and depreciation when a full taking is involved in particular

Depreciation Damages in Eminent Domain Proceedings

The individual\u27s right in eminent domain proceedings are spelled out by the United States Constitution-specifically, Amendment V, which provides that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. Of course, the seeming simplicity of this constitutional provision belies the complexities involved in its application. For example, it is well settled that just compensation for a given piece of property must be measured interms of the fair market value of that property. But market values of real estate are apt to fluctuate even under normal conditions, and their behavior when a public acquisition is in the offing can be chaotic. The problem the ourts face is in harnessing these economic forces in such a way that the individual property owner\u27s rights will be safeguarded. This note will examine how the courts have dealt with depreciation in general, and depreciation when a full taking is involved in particular

Public infrastructure and regional economic development: a simultaneous equations approach

A study of how public capital stock impacts regional economic development, which jointly models the effects of local public infrastructure on personal income and the effect of personal income on the allocation of local public outlays.Infrastructure (Economics) ; Regional economics ; Income

Using Photovoice to Navigate Social-ecological Change in Coastal Maine: a Case Study on Visibility, Visuality, and Visual Literacy

Media representations of the environment support specific cultures of viewing that can create expectations about how to observe social-ecological interactions in everyday life. While public perceptions may appear, in some cases, to reflect these normative representations, more critical and participatory approaches to environmental research and management have begun to complicate these representations as they are negotiated through intrapersonal, interpersonal, and group communication. Working from a visual cultural approach that interrogates issues of visibility, visuality, and visual literacy, this dissertation theorizes how coastal residents represent their own observations and experiences of environmental change through photography and what impact their views have on the perceived availability, desirability, and feasibility of community responses to change. For this project, I designed and facilitated a multi-stage photovoice project and a Q method evaluation that engaged a small group of residents from the communities surrounding the Bagaduce and Damariscotta Rivers in Maine. Across the three main chapters, I critically and collaboratively analyze the affordances of photography as a research methodology, visual communication practice, and social-ecological assessment tool. In the second chapter, I document the social-ecological changes residents perceived to impact their community and how related interactions were framed as inevitable, manageable, and deconstructive. In the third chapter, I explore how residents used photographs in individual interviews and group discussions and through material and dialogic exchanges to broaden, focus, and shift their meaning-making. In the fourth chapter, I evaluate how the photovoice methodology influenced participants’ perceived development of visual learning and communication skills and discuss implications for photovoice goal attainment. Together, this research indicates that environmental applications of photovoice may inspire resilience thinking through group negotiation of visual meaning and critical reflection on self-other-environment relationships. In turn, this research offers new possibilities for understanding and engaging visual representations of social-ecological change that constitute community experience and influence environmental adaptation

Regulating Hydraulic Fracturing Through Land Use: State Preemption Prevails

Hydraulic fracturing enables oil and gas operators to maximize hydrocarbon extraction from unconventional reservoirs. The increasing prevalence of fracturing generates robust debate and review of the environmental and economic impacts of the practice. An unbiased political dialogue of fracturing proves challenging. The technical complexity of the process and the divergent perceptions of local and state decision-makers foment regulatory tension. A division-of authority contest between the state government and home-rule cities ensues. In Colorado, state-level preemption gives courts a tool to invalidate local regulation of oil and gas activities where an operational conflict exists between the state and local law. However, Colorado cities that enjoy home-rule status under article XX of the Colorado Constitution possess plenary power to regulate matters of local concern. Zoning and land use, traditionally areas of local concern, could be utilized to effectively regulate fracturing. This Comment proposes that, notwithstanding home-rule plenary power, zoning regulations that de facto regulate oil and gas should be invalidated under the operational preemption test. The ambiguity between a permissible local land-use regulation and an impermissible local regulation of oil and gas needs greater clarity. Through express preemption, the state government can best provide this clarity by assembling the diverse collection of stakeholders required to implement the science-based regulations that fracturing demands