Demographic Trends in National Forest, Recreational, Retirement, and Amenity Areas

Those who live near national forests are both potential forest visitors and neighbors who feel the impact of many forest management decisions. This paper provides some insights about those proximate populations. It does so by measuring the proportion of national forest land within each county and then combining that with an analysis of the patterns of demographic change over the past several decades. Because there is considerable overlap between counties that contain national forests and those designated as recreational, high amenity, and retirement destination counties, demographic trends in such counties are compared. A total of 757 of the 3,141 U.S. counties contain national forest land. More than 66.1 million people resided in these counties in 2000, some 24% of the U.S. total. The population in national forest counties grew by 19% between 1990 and 2000 compared to 13% for the nation as a whole. Most of the population gain in national forest areas resulted from net in-migration. Population gains in national forest counties were slightly smaller than those in recreational and natural amenity counties and significantly less than those in retirement destination counties; however, the gains were considerably larger than those in other counties. National forest counties that are metropolitan have significantly more Hispanics than other metropolitan counties but fewer Blacks and Whites. Nonmetropolitan national forest counties contain a much larger proportion of non-Hispanic Whites than their metropolitan counterparts, a finding consistent with that for nonmetropolitan counties in general. Knowledge about the changing size and demographic structure of the population in national forest counties has particular relevance to Forest Service planners and policymakers

Balancing Leisure and Work: Evidence from the Seasonal Home

Seasonal homes are used during leisure time for many recreational activities, yet recent technological innovations have diminished the separation between the work place and the seasonal home. In a survey of Walworth County seasonal home owners, most who work full time report they seldom work during vacations and weekends from their seasonal home. Yet there is a distinct subgroup who do mix work into weekends and vacations for a variety of reasons. The most frequent reasons given by these people for working from the seasonal home were related to the expectations of coworkers and clients. Understanding more about the habits and motivations of those who frequently work during weekends and on vacations could provide a new perspective on the obstacles everyone faces in balancing work and leisure

Very-large-scale motions in rough-bed open-channel flow

Acknowledgements The study has been supported by two EPSRC/UK grants, ‘High-resolution numerical and experimental studies of turbulence-induced sediment erosion and near-bed transport’ (EP/G056404/1) and ‘Bed friction in rough-bed free-surface flows: a theoretical framework, roughness regimes, and quantification’ (EP/K041169/1). Discussions with I. Marusic and comments of three anonymous reviewers are greatly appreciated.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Demographic change in the northern forest

This brief examines the population redistribution in the Northern Forest, which includes thirty-four counties scattered across northern and central Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont. Authors Ken Johnson, Susan Stewart, and Miranda Mockrin report that the population of the Northern Forest grew modestly between 2000 and 2010, and the population gains were greatest in recreational areas and least in manufacturing areas. Racial and ethnic diversity is also growing in the Northern Forest, and the population is getting older due to aging in place among current residents and net outmigration among younger populations

Maximum-likelihood detection of sources among Poissonian noise

A maximum likelihood (ML) technique for detecting compact sources in images of the x-ray sky is examined. Such images, in the relatively low exposure regime accessible to present x-ray observatories, exhibit Poissonian noise at background flux levels. A variety of source detection methods are compared via Monte Carlo, and the ML detection method is shown to compare favourably with the optimized-linear-filter (OLF) method when applied to a single image. Where detection proceeds in parallel on several images made in different energy bands, the ML method is shown to have some practical advantages which make it superior to the OLF method. Some criticisms of ML are discussed. Finally, a practical method of estimating the sensitivity of ML detection is presented, and is shown to be also applicable to sliding-box source detection.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures. Accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysic

Local-time asymmetries in the Venus thermosphere

Our current understanding of the global structure and dynamics of the Venus thermosphere is embodied in models such as the Venus Thermospheric General Circulation Model (VTGCM) and empirical composition models such as VIRA and VTS3. We have completed an analysis of ultraviolet images of Venus at 130 nm acquired by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter Ultraviolet Spectrometer (PVOUVS). We have examined 97 images spanning the 10-year period between 1980 and 1990, and have developed a technique for global radiative transfer modeling with which we create synthetic models of each image analyzed. We have developed a hypothesis for understanding the persistent local-time asymmetry observed as a signature of vertically propagating internal gravity waves interacting with the thermospheric SS-AS circulation. This hypothesis is presented

Black hole pair creation and the stability of flat space

We extend the Gross-Perry-Yaffe approach of hot flat space instability to Minkowski space. This is done by a saddle point approximation of the partition function in a Schwarzschild wormhole background which is coincident with an eternal black hole. The appearance of an instability in the whole manifold is here interpreted as a black hole pair creation.Comment: 11 pages,RevTeX4, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in Int. J. Mod. Phys.