OPEN SPACE ALLOCATION AND TRAVEL COSTS

The gain from dividing parks into smaller pieces to reduce travel costs is weighed against the loss in services the parks provide since they are smaller. The optimal number of parks is dependent on whether travel costs are concentrated in parts of the town.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Amount and Spatial Distribution of Public Open Space to Maximize the Net Benefits from Urban Recreation

The spatial arrangement of public open spaces in communities has an important influence on the recreational net benefits from those public open spaces. A prime example of a public open space in communities where spatial arrangement is important is parks. From the perspective of maximizing the net benefits of recreation, there is a tradeoff between placing all the land for parks in a single park and making several parks to reduce the travel costs of households to the parks. If several parks are made, then the amount of land in each park is reduced, and the recreational net benefit of a trip to any of the parks is less. Since recreation is an important source of value from parks, an examination of an optimal spatial arrangement of parks for recreation in a community is of interest to community planners. The community is assumed to be a slice of a larger urban area or a small town since the housing structure and socioeconomic characteristics of the community is assumed homogeneous. The demand for recreation trips to parks is shifted by the socioeconomic characteristics of the population and the size of the parks. The size of the parks is the division of the number of parks into the total amount of land in parks. The price of a trip to a park is the cost of a round trip to the park. The consumer surplus of a trip to a park is the net benefit the person receives from the park. The amount of land for parks and number of parks to maximize the net benefits from recreation is determined from the model of the demand for trips to a park. Comparative static results suggest that the optimal amount of land, number of parks, and the size of the parks depend on the socioeconomic characteristics of the city. Cities with higher populations, more income, and more education should have more land in parks, more parks, and the parks should be smaller. Lower travel costs and prices of land should result in more land in parks and more parks, but there should be no influence on the park size. Data are collected from seventy cities on the amount of land, size, and number of parks. The distances between the parks, distances of the parks from downtown, and other variables relevant to the spatial distribution of parks are also obtained. Data on the socioeconomic characteristics of the population, travel costs, and the price of land are collected for the cities. The same data is collected for each of the one hundred and sixty nine zip codes associated with the seventy cities. These zip codes are spatially smaller and may better represent homogeneous communities. Three equations are estimated to learn the influence of the socioeconomic and travel cost features of a city on the spatial distribution of parks. The three equations are the estimation of the amount of land, the number and the size of parks. The results of the estimation for the amount of land in parks equation match the theoretical predictions, and the fit of the relationship is good. Population, population density, and land price have a significant influence on the amount of land in parks. A larger population makes a city create more land in parks while population density and the price of land makes a city reduce the amount of land. The results of the estimation for the number and size of parks are less clear. The results match the comparative static predictions loosely, and the fit of the equations is not good. These findings may reflect incorrect assumptions on the preferences of people for park size in the theoretical model, or the data that the preferences are supposed to represent are clouded with noise from government regulations, costly removal of parks, and other features of the complexity of urban spatial structure. Although recreation is significant component of the value households derive from parks, there has been little attention paid to determining the spatial arrangement of parks to maximize the net benefits. The theoretical results suggest that the amount of land and the spatial distribution of parks should be sensitive to the socioeconomic characteristics of a community. However, only the predicted signs of the socioeconomic characteristic on the amount of land in parks hold up empirically. The spatial distribution of land is more sensitive to institutional factors that probably make it necessary to have more data on parks to fully identify the relationship between the socioeconomic characteristics and the number and size of parks.Public Economics,

Development Patterns and the Recreation Value of Amenities

Public open spaces around and within urban areas have been increasingly developed due to greater population pressures. My paper investigates if land around public open spaces is likely to get developed faster since households are attracted to the recreation value as well as the environmental amenities of the public open space. There has been inadequate attention in the literature to the influence of the different sources of value of open space on housing prices. While views of open space are certainly an important source of value to households, public open space is also valued because households enjoy recreation at the open space. Adopting the monocentric city model, simulations examine how the different sources of value of public open space influence the developed area, rent gradient and the development density of an urban area. The monocentric city model has residents competing for housing around a single central business district (CBD) while developers choose the density of development from the expected prices of the homes at that location in the city. Simulations of the closed city model result in equilibrium rent gradients for land and the housing, a utility level, and a city boundary. By referencing the monocentric city model with two-dimensional coordinates, Wu and Plantinga (2003) are able to more spatially explicitly examine the influence of amenities on the equilibrium state of the city. Amenities are shown to generate leap-frog development, influence the developed area of the city, the population density, rent gradients and location of different income groups. Although different shapes and areas of amenities are examined in their paper, there is no investigation of the proper proximity of these amenities to each other. Several small amenities dispersed far apart from each other in the city may result in less total amount of developed land than if there is only a single large amenity. Another reason that the proximity of amenities to each other matters is that the net benefits from recreation are influenced by the spatial arrangement of the amenities. Consumer´s surplus from recreation trips to the amenity is the net benefit of the amenity, with the price of a recreation trip including the travel cost to the amenity. The travel costs from recreation at amenities depend on how widely dispersed the amenities are in the city. While several amenities located widely throughout a city lower the travel costs of recreation, the city tends to diffuse more too resulting in a larger developed area. On the other hand, a single centrally located amenity contracts the city resulting in a smaller developed area although the travel costs of recreation rise slightly. Simulations from the model collect information on the aggregate amount of recreation trips, recreational net benefits, and the developed area. More localized benefits of amenities like nice views and cleaner air have a stronger influence on housing prices and development densities than the less localized benefits of amenities like recreation. If the travel costs for recreation are low, then only the localized benefits of amenities influence housing prices and development densities. However, if the demand for recreation and the travel costs to reach the amenity is high, the benefits of recreation have the potential to influence the housing prices and development densities in that area of the city. There are several potential solutions to the problem of recreation benefits of the amenities leading to the unwanted development of natural or agricultural land. The simplest solution is to regulate that no recreation take place at the amenity. Of course, the nice views and cleaner air may still draw development outward, and the enforcement of no recreation is necessary. Rather than prohibit recreation, raising user fees at recreation sites is a way to generate revenue for the city while simultaneously restraining sprawl. If the cost of travel to a recreation site is high, development is more likely near the site since households want the benefit of a trip without the high cost of travel to the site. If roads to the recreation site are improved to reduce the cost of travel, households will prefer to locate close to the central business district rather than the recreation site to reduce the cost of their daily commutes.Public Economics,

Identifying Individual Discount Rates and Valuing Public Open Space with Stated Preference Models

An individual's rate of time preference is an important consideration for individuals deciding whether to support a public good since the benefits of a public good often come in the future. Our study finds individual discount rates from a contingent valuation method (CVM) question where the time frame of the payment schedule is varied across surveys. We find discount rates similar to the rates found in the recent revealed preference and experimental literature of around 30%. Our CVM question addresses the preservation of additional open space adjacent to a large regional park at the urban fringe of Portland, Oregon.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, H43, Q51, Q15,

The GISMO-2 Bolometer Camera

We present the concept for the GISMO-2 bolometer camera) which we build for background-limited operation at the IRAM 30 m telescope on Pico Veleta, Spain. GISM0-2 will operate Simultaneously in the 1 mm and 2 mm atmospherical windows. The 1 mm channel uses a 32 x 40 TES-based Backshort Under Grid (BUG) bolometer array, the 2 mm channel operates with a 16 x 16 BUG array. The camera utilizes almost the entire full field of view provided by the telescope. The optical design of GISM0-2 was strongly influenced by our experience with the GISMO 2 mm bolometer camera which is successfully operating at the 30m telescope. GISMO is accessible to the astronomical community through the regular IRAM call for proposals

Differential Stress-Induced Neuronal Activation Patterns in Mouse Lines Selectively Bred for High, Normal or Low Anxiety

There is evidence for a disturbed perception and processing of emotional information in pathological anxiety. Using a rat model of trait anxiety generated by selective breeding, we previously revealed differences in challenge-induced neuronal activation in fear/anxiety-related brain areas between high (HAB) and low (LAB) anxiety rats. To confirm whether findings generalize to other species, we used the corresponding HAB/LAB mouse model and investigated c-Fos responses to elevated open arm exposure. Moreover, for the first time we included normal anxiety mice (NAB) for comparison. The results confirm that HAB mice show hyperanxious behavior compared to their LAB counterparts, with NAB mice displaying an intermediate anxiety phenotype. Open arm challenge revealed altered c-Fos response in prefrontal-cortical, limbic and hypothalamic areas in HAB mice as compared to LAB mice, and this was similar to the differences observed previously in the HAB/LAB rat lines. In mice, however, additional differential c-Fos response was observed in subregions of the amygdala, hypothalamus, nucleus accumbens, midbrain and pons. Most of these differences were also seen between HAB and NAB mice, indicating that it is predominately the HAB line showing altered neuronal processing. Hypothalamic hypoactivation detected in LAB versus NAB mice may be associated with their low-anxiety/high-novelty-seeking phenotype. The detection of similarly disturbed activation patterns in a key set of anxiety-related brain areas in two independent models reflecting psychopathological states of trait anxiety confirms the notion that the altered brain activation in HAB animals is indeed characteristic of enhanced (pathological) anxiety, providing information for potential targets of therapeutic intervention

Wide-field lensing mass maps from Dark Energy Survey science verification data

We present a mass map reconstructed from weak gravitational lensing shear measurements over 139 deg2 from the Dark Energy Survey science verification data. The mass map probes both luminous and dark matter, thus providing a tool for studying cosmology. We find good agreement between the mass map and the distribution of massive galaxy clusters identified using a red-sequence cluster finder. Potential candidates for superclusters and voids are identified using these maps. We measure the cross-correlation between the mass map and a magnitude-limited foreground galaxy sample and find a detection at the 6.8 sigma level with 20 arc min smoothing. These measurements are consistent with simulated galaxy catalogs based on N -body simulations from a cold dark matter model with a cosmological constant. This suggests low systematics uncertainties in the map. We summarize our key findings in this Letter; the detailed methodology and tests for systematics are presented in a companion paper

Low back pain beliefs are associated to age, location of work, education and pain-related disability in Chinese healthcare, professionals working in China: a cross sectinal survey

Background: Low back pain (LBP) is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Evidence pointing towards a more efficacious model of care using a biopsychosocial approach for LBP management highlights the need to understand the pain-related beliefs of patients and those who treat them. The beliefs held by healthcare professionals (HCPs) are known to influence the treatment advice given to patients and consequently management outcomes. Back pain beliefs are known to be influenced by factors such as culture, education, health literacy, place of work, personal experience of LBP and the sequelae of LBP such as disability. There is currently a knowledge gap among these relationships in non-western countries. The aim of this study was to examine the associations between LBP-related beliefs among Chinese HCPs and characteristics of these HCPs. Methods: A convenience sample of 432 HCPs working in various health settings in Shanghai, China, completed a series of questionnaires assessing their demographic characteristics, LBP status, pain-related disability and their beliefs about their own LBP experience, using the Back beliefs Questionnaire (BBQ) and the Fear Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire (FABQ).Results: Younger Chinese HCPs (20–29 years) held more negative beliefs and attitudes related to LBP compared to older HCPs (>40years; BBQ mean difference [95% CI]: 2.4 [0.9 - 3.9], p = 0.001). HCPs working outside tertiary hospitals had poorer beliefs concerning the inevitable consequences of LBP (BBQ mean difference [95% CI]: -2.4 [-3.8 - -1.0], p = 0.001). HCPs who experienced LBP had higher level of fear avoidance beliefs when experiencing high LBP-related disability (FABQ-physical mean difference [95% CI]: 2.8 [1.5 - 4.1], p < 0.001; FABQ-work mean difference [95% CI]: 6.2 [4.0 - 8.4], p < 0.001)) and had lower level of fear avoidance beliefs if they had completed postgraduate study(FABQ-physical mean difference [95% CI]: 2.9 [-5.8 - 0.0], p = 0.049).Conclusion: This study suggests that LBP-related beliefs and attitudes among Chinese HCPs are influenced by age, location of work, level of LBP-related disability and education level. Understanding back pain beliefs of Chinese HCPs forms an important foundation for future studies into the condition and its management in China

Joint analysis of Dark Energy Survey Year 3 data and CMB lensing from SPT and Planck. III. Combined cosmological constraints

We present cosmological constraints from the analysis of two-point correlation functions between galaxy positions and galaxy lensing measured in Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 3 data and measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and Planck. When jointly analyzing the DES-only two-point functions and the DES cross-correlations with SPT+Planck CMB lensing, we find ωm=0.344±0.030 and S8σ8(ωm/0.3)0.5=0.773±0.016, assuming ΛCDM. When additionally combining with measurements of the CMB lensing autospectrum, we find ωm=0.306-0.021+0.018 and S8=0.792±0.012. The high signal-to-noise of the CMB lensing cross-correlations enables several powerful consistency tests of these results, including comparisons with constraints derived from cross-correlations only, and comparisons designed to test the robustness of the galaxy lensing and clustering measurements from DES. Applying these tests to our measurements, we find no evidence of significant biases in the baseline cosmological constraints from the DES-only analyses or from the joint analyses with CMB lensing cross-correlations. However, the CMB lensing cross-correlations suggest possible problems with the correlation function measurements using alternative lens galaxy samples, in particular the redmagic galaxies and high-redshift maglim galaxies, consistent with the findings of previous studies. We use the CMB lensing cross-correlations to identify directions for further investigating these problems