Nonlinear Effects in Easement Valuation

Rules of thumb have been developed to assist appraisers in dealing with the uncertainties that abound when easement values must be estimated. An economic analysis of one popular rule-of-thumb technique, based on a fixed percentage of the value of a hypothetical fee simple interest in the affected land, reveals that such methodology could not generally be expected to yield meaningful results. If a rule of thumb were to be employed, its use would be more supportable if the underlying assumptions reflected the nonlinear structure of land values.

Percentage Leases and the Advantages of Regional Malls

The differences in the ownership structures of downtown retail districts and shopping centers may give rise to varying space allocations and rental contracts found in these markets. This article specifically examines the value-enhancing aspects of percentage leases and explores the mechanisms of tenant mix, risk sharing and rent discrimination through which this value is created. The use of percentage leases may lead to superior returns by allowing a rent structure that approaches perfect price discrimination. Risk sharing through the use of percentage leases may also create value for the property owner and lead to lower rents for tenants.

Statistical stability and set size exert distinct influences on visual search

Copyright © The Author(s) 2019. Despite continuous retinal chaos, we perceive the world as stable and complete. This illusion is sustained over consecutive glances by reliance on statistical redundancies inherent in the visual environment. For instance, repeating the average size of a collection of differently sized items speeds visual search for a randomly located target regardless of trial-to-trial changes in local element size (Corbett & Melcher, 2014b). Here, we manipulate set size to investigate the potential role attention may play in these facilitative effects of statistical stability on visual search. Observers discriminated the left or right tilt of a Gabor target defined by a unique conjunction of orientation and spatial frequency in displays of Gabors with a stable or unstable mean size over successive trials. When set size was manipulated over sequences of successive trials, but held constant within a given sequence in Experiment 1, we observed distinct effects of statistical stability and attention, such that participants made faster correct responses as a function of stability and slower correct responses as a function of increasing set size. Replicating these main effects in Experiment 2, when set size was always unstable, provided converging evidence for discrete influences of statistical stability and attentional contributions to visual search. Overall, results support the proposal that our stable impressions of the surrounding environment and our abilities to attend salient events within that environment are distinctively governed by inherent statistical context and attentional processing demands

Systems Analysis of complex glaciological processes and application to calving of Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica

Calving is a complex process subject to several cooperating atmospheric, oceanographic and glaciological forcings that vary in space and time, and whose relative effects are challenging to separate. Statistical ‘Systems Analysis’ is commonly used in engineering and economics to extricate complex ‘force–response’ relationships. Here we apply Systems Analysis to the Amery rift system, East Antarctica. We develop a scalable ‘System Model’ driven by a coarsely-sampled dataset characteristic of glaciological observations in remote locations, and validate it using rift lengths observed in 2000–06 and 2012. In this initial demonstration, we forecast a detachment date of ∼2019 ± 5 years for the large tabular iceberg colloquially known as the ‘Loose Tooth’, for which relative humidity surprisingly emerges as the best statistical predictor. RACMO2 climate modelling reveals that relative humidity correlates best with surface albedo and snowmelt, both of which are intimately linked to firn compaction and ice shelf temperature and flow. We postulate that relative humidity can therefore serve as a proxy for internal stress, a known key control of ‘Loose Tooth’ calving. Although no physical causality is implied in Systems Analysis, postulates such as this can aid in setting priorities in studies of complex glaciological processes

Improving Community Healthcare for Patients with Parkinson's Disease: The Dutch Model

Because of the complex nature of Parkinson's disease, a wide variety of health professionals are involved in care. Stepwise, we have addressed the challenges in the provision of multidisciplinary care for this patient group. As a starting point, we have gained detailed insight into the current delivery of allied healthcare, as well as the barriers and facilitators for optimal care. To overcome the identified barriers, a tertiary referral centre was founded; evidence-based guidelines were developed and cost-effectively implemented within regional community networks of specifically trained allied health professionals (the ParkinsonNet concept). We increasingly use ICT to bind these professional networks together and also to empower and engage patients in making decisions about their health. This comprehensive approach is likely to be feasible for other countries as well, so we currently collaborate in a European collaboration to improve community care for persons with Parkinson's disease