Economic Impact of the James River Park System

The James River Park System (JRPS), “a Little Bit of Wilderness in the Heart of the City,” is a unique part of Richmond’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities. With 550 acres of shoreline and islands in the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the JRPS extends in 14 sections from the Huguenot Bridge (West) to a half mile beyond the I-95 Bridge (East). It includes most of the fall line of the James River, and features rocks, rapids, meadows, and forests that make for an area of unspoiled natural beauty. Large cities around the United States routinely engage researchers to examine the economic value of their Park Systems. These efforts generally assess seven core criteria including (1) property values, (2) revenue associated with tourism, (3) direct use, (4) health, (5) community cohesion, (6) clean water and (7) clean air. This study, the first of its kind for the JRPS, was conducted between November 2016 and March 2017. Due to the tight timeframe, the authors examined only a subset of these factors: property values and tourism. They offer evidence of the value – to all Richmond citizens and to the City – of JRPS’ natural areas, attracting more visitors than any other Metro Richmond destinations

RICHMOND’S JOURNEY-TO-WORK TRANSIT TRIP-MAKING ANALYSIS

This paper uses the 2000 Census Transportation Planning Package data to conduct a journey-to-work transit trip-making analysis for the City of Richmond, Virginia. In spite of its low modal share, transit is critical to the City due to its unique demographics and high transit demand. Findings of statistical analyses suggest that factors impacting transit uses at place-of-residence and place-of-work are different. Nevertheless, they share one thing in common that it is essential to improve transit accessibility to workers, especially the ones whose households are below poverty status. The existing hub-and-spoke bus transit system is being challenged by the City’s suburbanization movement and declining downtown area. To accommodate this trend and unmet transit needs, this paper recommends strengthening the bus transit services in the urban fringe residential areas, rather than exclusively focusing on the suburb-downtown transit improvements.Public transportation, Social factors, Ridership, Urban areas

Understanding the Jobs-Affordable Housing Balance in the Richmond Region

The mismatch between location of jobs and housing has a significant impact on the efficiency and quality of life within metropolitan areas. A well-planned region strives to be a “community of short distances.” A wide range of housing choices located close to employment centers could shorten commuting distances and substantially reduce government outlays for transportation facilities, reduce household transportation expenses, and increase feasibility of pedestrian movement. These needs are particularly important to families earning modest wages. CURA, with support from The Community Foundation Serving Richmond and Central Virginia and the Richmond Association of Realtors, has analyzed the spatial pattern of lower-wage jobs and lower-cost housing within the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The analysis reveals how low-cost housing and modest-wage jobs in the Richmond region are not well-balanced. Few areas in which modest-wage jobs cluster have comparable levels of low-cost housing. The established suburban areas north, west, and south of Richmond’s urban center have a large number of retail and service jobs that pay modest wages, yet these areas provide few affordable-dwelling units for these wage earners. The second part of this study addressed a major obstacle to the construction of new, affordable-housing units: fears. Many new, affordable dwelling units, by financial necessity, will be built at higher densities and smaller size to reduce cost. Homeowners in nearby neighborhoods often oppose construction of these units over fear of reduced property values, higher crime, and other factors. Six higher-density, 3 lower-cost housing projects were studied for their impact on the nearby middle-income neighborhoods. Documentation of home sale prices, assessment values, and crime rates before and after construction of the more affordable dwelling units did not reveal any notable long-term impact on crime rates, property values, or property sales

3D Visualization in Community-Based Planning

A new wave of recently developed Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software provides for higher levels of analysis, modeling, and visualization for community development and planning. Beyond the typical 2D static map produced through most GIS software, more recent developments allow for much more detailed 3D visual graphics. CommunityViz allows for predictive modeling, data integration, and 3D visualization. It is the utility of this last capability that is examined in an Extension pilot program in an Iowa community. Based upon this application, the potential of this type of software for Extension education is discussed

Spontaneous Interlayer Charge Transfer near the Magnetic Quantum Limit

Experiments reveal that a confined electron system with two equally-populated layers at zero magnetic field can spontaneously break this symmetry through an interlayer charge transfer near the magnetic quantum limit. New fractional quantum Hall states at unusual total filling factors such as \nu = 11/15 (= 1/3 + 2/5) stabilize as signatures that the system deforms itself, at substantial electrostatic energy cost, in order to gain crucial correlation energy by "locking in" separate incompressible liquid phases at unequal fillings in the two layers (e.g., layered 1/3 and 2/5 states in the case of \nu = 11/15).Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures (1 color) included in text. Related papers at http://www.ee.princeton.edu/~hari/papers.htm

General framework for revising class A3 refrigerant charge limits - a discussion

Currently, industry and governmental entities are increasingly concerned with the restrictive controls on flammable refrigerant – particularly class A3 – charge limits, within safety standards. Since A3 refrigerants, such as R290 and R1270, are in many respects considered as desirable refrigerants to help resolve the global warming problem associated with other options (such as HFCs), safety standards should be formulated so that A3 refrigerant could be applied more widely than permitted today. An analysis of current standards reveals the extent to which A3 refrigerants currently can be applied. Further analysis of these and standards from other sectors help identify concepts and protective measures that can be applied to extend equipment across a range of larger cooling and heating capacities. The objective is to discuss how charge limits could be revised to enable a wider application of A3 refrigerants, with respect to safety regulations and associated implications, concepts and approaches available in published literature

Topological Phase Transition in the ν=2/3\nu=2/3 Quantum Hall Effect

The double layer $\nu=2/3$ fractional quantum Hall system is studied using the edge state formalism and finite-size diagonalization subject to periodic boundary conditions. Transitions between three different ground states are observed as the separation as well as the tunneling between the two layers is varied. Experimental consequences are discussed.Comment: 11 pages, REVTEX v3.0, 7 figure

Quantum Hall effect in single wide quantum wells

We study the quantum Hall states in the lowest Landau level for a single wide quantum well. Due to a separation of charges to opposite sides of the well, a single wide well can be modelled as an effective two level system. We provide numerical evidence of the existence of a phase transition from an incompressible to a compressible state as the electron density is increased for specific well width. Our numerical results show a critical electron density which depends on well width, beyond which a transition incompressible double layer quantum Hall state to a mono-layer compressible state occurs. We also calculate the related phase boundary corresponding to destruction of the collective mode energy gap. We show that the effective tunneling term and the interlayer separation are both renormalised by the strong magnetic field. We also exploite the local density functional techniques in the presence of strong magnetic field at $\nu=1$ to calculate renormalized $\Delta_{SAS}$. The numerical results shows good agreement between many-body calculations and local density functional techniques in the presence of a strong magnetic field at $\nu=1$. we also discuss implications of this work on the $\nu=1/2$ incompressible state observed in SWQW.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figures (figures are not included

The Collision of Two Black Holes

We study the head-on collision of two equal mass, nonrotating black holes. We consider a range of cases from holes surrounded by a common horizon to holes initially separated by about $20M$, where $M$ is the mass of each hole. We determine the waveforms and energies radiated for both the $\ell = 2$ and $\ell=4$ waves resulting from the collision. In all cases studied the normal modes of the final black hole dominate the spectrum. We also estimate analytically the total gravitational radiation emitted, taking into account the tidal heating of horizons using the membrane paradigm, and other effects. For the first time we are able to compare analytic calculations, black hole perturbation theory, and strong field, nonlinear numerical calculations for this problem, and we find excellent agreement.Comment: 14 pages, 93-