The Effects of Scenic and Environmental Amenities on Agricultural Land Values

Ascribing land value solely to productive capacity does not accurately capture the impact environmental amenities provide on western land prices. Agricultural land prices in Wyoming are estimated using a hedonic price model and Geographic Information Sciences (GIS) data. These GIS measurements include on-parcel wildlife and fish habitat, viewscape attributes and distance to protected federal lands. A feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) approach is used to address both spatial autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity. The estimation is robust and highly significant. Results indicate that amenities as well as productivity are significant in explaining land values for the sample analyzed. Such information is useful for landscape management in the face of amenity threatening parcel fragmentation.Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,

A unifying explanation of complex frequency spectra of gamma Dor, SPB and Be stars: combination frequencies and highly non-sinusoidal light curves

There are many Slowly Pulsating B (SPB) stars and γ Dor stars in the Kepler mission data set. The light curves of these pulsating stars have been classified phenomenologically into stars with symmetric light curves and with asymmetric light curves. In the same effective temperature ranges as the γ Dor and SPB stars, there are variable stars with downward light curves that have been conjectured to be caused by spots. Among these phenomenological classes of stars, some show ‘frequency groups’ in their amplitude spectra that have not previously been understood. While it has been recognized that non-linear pulsation gives rise to combination frequencies in a Fourier description of the light curves of these stars, such combination frequencies have been considered to be a only a minor constituent of the amplitude spectra. In this paper, we unify the Fourier description of the light curves of these groups of stars, showing that many of them can be understood in terms of only a few base frequencies, which we attribute to g-mode pulsations, and combination frequencies, where sometimes a very large number of combination frequencies dominate the amplitude spectra. The frequency groups seen in these stars are thus tremendously simplified. We show observationally that the combination frequencies can have amplitudes greater than the base frequency amplitudes, and we show theoretically how this arises. Thus for some γ Dor and SPB stars, combination frequencies can have the highest observed amplitudes. Among the B stars are pulsating Be stars that show emission lines in their spectra from occasional ejection of material into a circumstellar disc. Our analysis gives strong support to the understanding of these pulsating Be stars as rapidly rotating SPB stars, explained entirely by g-mode pulsations

Determinants of Agricultural Landowners’ Willingness to Supply Open Space Through Conservation Easements

Open space provides a range of benefits to many people of a community, beyond the benefits that accrue to private landowners. Parks and natural areas can be used for recreation; wetlands and forests supply storm-water drainage and wildlife habitat; farms and forests provide aesthetic benefits to surrounding residents. Moreover, undeveloped land can give relief from congestion. Agricultural lands are an important source of open space, but many of these lands are under great development pressure. One tool that is currently being used to aid in the preservation of open space by landowners is conservation easements. The rate of land protection by state and local land trusts has tripled since the beginning of the decade, and the West is the fastest growing region for both the number of acres under conservation easements and number of land trusts according to the Land Trust Alliance. Given the increased demand for amenities provided by private agricultural lands and the increased use of conservation easements, it is interesting to note that there is a paucity of research related to landowners’ preferences regarding conservation easements. The specific research objective of this paper is to determine important factors affecting an agricultural landowners’ potential choice regarding the placement of a parcel of land under a conservation easement. Knowing these factors could be useful to communities, public organizations and land trusts trying to provide open space to meet a growing demand for this public good. Information to construct a survey was obtained through a series of focus groups held in Wyoming and Colorado. Results from these focus groups were then used to develop twelve versions of a stated choice survey instrument. The first part of the survey included questions about the landowner’s specific community. These Likert scale questions were to designed to elicit a measurement of the respondents’ “sense of place” regarding his or her community. The second part of the survey questioned participants about their land and their land’s attributes, including what the landowner felt his land was worth, types of production and non-production activities land was used for, the types of developmental pressures being felt by the landowner, and the kinds of amenities he would like to conserve on his property. The third section of the survey included questions about the landowner’s personal knowledge of easements and two stated choice questions regarding conservation easements. These stated choice questions focused on five attributes: contract length, managerial control, wildlife habitat, access and payment. The final section of the survey asked respondents about demographic characteristics. Data were analyzed as a multinomial logit random utility model in LIMDEP. Respondents preferred an easement that was in perpetuity over an easement that was term in length. Respondents were less likely to accept an easement if public access on their property was required. As payment proportion in relation to the respondents’ perception of the value of their land went up, so did the likelihood that they would accept the easement. Landowners in Colorado were more likely to accept an easement than landowners in Wyoming. This is somewhat expected as developmental pressures in Colorado are higher than Wyoming, and thus far more easements have been transacted in Colorado than in Wyoming. Years on the land and connection to community were significant in explaining the acceptance of an easement scenario. The more connected one was to their community, the more likely they were to accept an easement. The longer a respondent had lived on their land, the more likely they were to accept an easement as well. The level of education a respondent had achieved negatively impacted easement acceptance. If an easement was already in place on a respondents’ property, the likelihood of accepting an easement scenario increased significantly.Land Economics/Use,

Topological Censorship

All three-manifolds are known to occur as Cauchy surfaces of asymptotically flat vacuum spacetimes and of spacetimes with positive-energy sources. We prove here the conjecture that general relativity does not allow an observer to probe the topology of spacetime: any topological structure collapses too quickly to allow light to traverse it. More precisely, in a globally hyperbolic, asymptotically flat spacetime satisfying the null energy condition, every causal curve from \scri^- to {\scri}^+ is homotopic to a topologically trivial curve from \scri^- to {\scri}^+. (If the Poincar\'e conjecture is false, the theorem does not prevent one from probing fake 3-spheres).Comment: 12 pages, REVTEX; 1 postscript figure in a separate uuencoded file. Our earlier version (PRL 71, 1486 (1993)) contained a secondary result, mistakenly attributed to Schoen and Yau, regarding ``passive topological censorship'' of a certain class of topologies. As Gregory Burnett has pointed out (gr-qc/9504012), this secondary result is false. The main topological censorship theorem is unaffected by the erro

Phases of granular segregation in a binary mixture

We present results from an extensive experimental investigation into granular segregation of a shallow binary mixture in which particles are driven by frictional interactions with the surface of a vibrating horizontal tray. Three distinct phases of the mixture are established viz; binary gas (unsegregated), segregation liquid and segregation crystal. Their ranges of existence are mapped out as a function of the system's primary control parameters using a number of measures based on Voronoi tessellation. We study the associated transitions and show that segregation can be suppressed is the total filling fraction of the granular layer, $C$, is decreased below a critical value, $C_{c}$, or if the dimensionless acceleration of the driving, $\gamma$, is increased above a value $\gamma_{c}$.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

EVOLVING CONSERVATION EASEMENT MARKETS IN THE WEST

Land Economics/Use,

THE CONTRIBUTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL AMENITIES TO AGRICULTURAL LAND VALUES: HEDONIC MODELLING USING GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS DATA

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data are used in a hedonic model to measure the impact of recreational and scenic amenities on agricultural land values. Results indicate agricultural land values are determined by environmental amenities as well as production attributes. Significant amenity variables included scenic view, elk habitat and fishery productivity.Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,

Reaction kinetics of muonium with the halogen gases (F2, Cl2, and Br2)

Copyright @ 1989 American Institute of PhysicsBimolecular rate constants for the thermal chemical reactions of muonium (Mu) with the halogen gases—Mu+X2→MuX+X—are reported over the temperature ranges from 500 down to 100, 160, and 200 K for X2=F2,Cl2, and Br2, respectively. The Arrhenius plots for both the chlorine and fluorine reactions show positive activation energies Ea over the whole temperature ranges studied, but which decrease to near zero at low temperature, indicative of the dominant role played by quantum tunneling of the ultralight muonium atom. In the case of Mu+F2, the bimolecular rate constant k(T) is essentially independent of temperature below 150 K, likely the first observation of Wigner threshold tunneling in gas phase (H atom) kinetics. A similar trend is seen in the Mu+Cl2 reaction. The Br2 data exhibit an apparent negative activation energy [Ea=(−0.095±0.020) kcal mol−1], constant over the temperature range of ∼200–400 K, but which decreases at higher temperatures, indicative of a highly attractive potential energy surface. This result is consistent with the energy dependence in the reactive cross section found some years ago in the atomic beam data of Hepburn et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 69, 4311 (1978)]. In comparing the present Mu data with the corresponding H atom kinetic data, it is found that Mu invariably reacts considerably faster than H at all temperatures, but particularly so at low temperatures in the cases of F2 and Cl2. The current transition state calculations of Steckler, Garrett, and Truhlar [Hyperfine Interact. 32, 779 (986)] for Mu+X2 account reasonably well for the rate constants for F2 and Cl2 near room temperature, but their calculated value for Mu+Br2 is much too high. Moreover, these calculations seemingly fail to account for the trend in the Mu+F2 and Mu+Cl2 data toward pronounced quantum tunneling at low temperatures. It is noted that the Mu kinetics provide a crucial test of the accuracy of transition state treatments of tunneling on these early barrier HX2 potential energy surfaces.NSERC (Canada), Donors of the Petroleum Research Fund, administered by the American Chemical Society, for their partial support of this research and the Canada Council

Pengaruh Otonomi Daerah Terhadap Percepatan Pembangunan Infrastruktur Di Kabupaten Bolaang Mongondow Utara

North Bolaang Mongondow Regency formed as a result of the nuances of reform and regional autonomy. North Bolaang Mongondow with its existence as an expansion are after the implementation of regional autonomy, the maters that were examined in this study was: how much influence among the variables of human resources, financial resources/funding, policy development to variable acceleration of infrastructure development in North Bolaang Mongondow. The research method used was research using both primary and secondary data, by dividing the questionnaire and secondary data collection agencies. Inference and descriptive statistics used in this research is simple regression and multiple regressions. Respondents totaled 75 people, drawn by simple random sampling. The results of this study show that there are significant human resource affect toward infrastructure acceleration; the higher the human resource, then, the better the acceleration of the development. there are significant financial resources impact on infrastructure acceleration; the higher the financial resources, then, the faster the infrastructure acceleration is. There are significant effects of the development policy toward the infrastructure acceleration; the higher the development policy, then, the better the infrastructure acceleration. It is advised that human resource should be improved and developed through civil service recruitment with accurate competition and qualification, technical tutor related to infrastructure acceleration, and incentive to existing employees. Besides, there should be researches done in relation to financial resources aspects in North Bolaang Mongondow Region in order to infrastructure development acceleration. There also should be further researches especially about divisions of development policies between the development done by both legislative and executive government