6,863 research outputs found

    COMMUNITY CHOICES AND HOUSING DECISIONS: A SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN HIGHLANDS

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    This paper examines land development using an integrated approach that combines residential decisions about choices of community in the Southern Appalachian region with the application of the GIS (Geographical Information System). The empirical model infers a distinctive heterogeneity in the characteristics of community choices. The results also indicate that socioeconomic motives strongly affect urban housing decisions while environmental amenities affect those of rural housing.Public Economics,

    Comparing Dense Galaxy Cluster Redshift Surveys with Weak Lensing Maps

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    We use dense redshift surveys of nine galaxy clusters at z0.2z\sim0.2 to compare the galaxy distribution in each system with the projected matter distribution from weak lensing. By combining 2087 new MMT/Hectospec redshifts and the data in the literature, we construct spectroscopic samples within the region of weak-lensing maps of high (70--89%) and uniform completeness. With these dense redshift surveys, we construct galaxy number density maps using several galaxy subsamples. The shape of the main cluster concentration in the weak-lensing maps is similar to the global morphology of the number density maps based on cluster members alone, mainly dominated by red members. We cross correlate the galaxy number density maps with the weak-lensing maps. The cross correlation signal when we include foreground and background galaxies at 0.5zcl<z<2zclz_{\rm cl}<z<2z_{\rm cl} is 102310-23% larger than for cluster members alone at the cluster virial radius. The excess can be as high as 30% depending on the cluster. Cross correlating the galaxy number density and weak-lensing maps suggests that superimposed structures close to the cluster in redshift space contribute more significantly to the excess cross correlation signal than unrelated large-scale structure along the line of sight. Interestingly, the weak-lensing mass profiles are not well constrained for the clusters with the largest cross correlation signal excesses (>>20% for A383, A689 and A750). The fractional excess in the cross correlation signal including foreground and background structures could be a useful proxy for assessing the reliability of weak-lensing cluster mass estimates.Comment: 22 pages, 19 figures, 2 tables. To appear in ApJ. Paper with high resolution figures is available at http://astro.kias.re.kr/~hshwang/ms_hwang20141014.pd
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