This thesis is an inquiry into the problem of labor mobility in Utah County, Utah. Utah County has been designated as an area of substantial unemployment by the federal government. This thesis suggests one means to lessen this unemployment is through better mobility of the work force in Utah County.

The Swedish educational reforms of the 1990s introduced a choice- and voucher-based system, which allowed students to choose schools regardless of their proximity to them. As a consequence, new opportunities for geographical disparities in educational provisions as well as in home-to- school mobilities have emerged. The following thesis addresses this development by focusing on compulsory school (grade 9) students’ home-to-school mobility patterns. More specifically, a Bourdieusian lens is applied to understand mobility in terms of both physical and social space. In contrast to the Bourdieusian tradition, articulations between social and physical space are operationalized by constructing individually defined, scalable neighbourhoods. The software EquiPop is used to compute neighbourhood context neighbours in the municipality of Stockholm (n = 779 079) using the k-nearest neighbour algorithm (k = 1 600). A k-means cluster analysis is applied to construct income-based neighbourhood types. On this basis, this thesis asks about the localizations and positions of schools and students as well as about the mobility patterns and predictors of students residing in low-income, and thus economic capital deprived, neighbourhoods (n = 2 346). Utilizing register data, the study finds an unequal distribution of educational provisions in relation to different providers, i.e. municipal schools and independent schools, as well as different school types. Furthermore, the results indicate that students from low-income neighbourhoods are unequally mobilized dependent on migration background and the educational background of mothers. Moreover, independent schools have been found to be a attractive alternative for students from low-income neighbourhoods. / Research project "On the outskirt of the school market" by Håkan Forsberg

Taking accessibility into consideration is crucial when planning for public transport in a city. The bus network of the Swedish city Uppsala has undergone major changes since 2017, featuring a new circular bus line and several exchange points where commuters can change to regional and city buses easily. Measuring the accessibility and mobility of the residents of Uppsala will be the focus of this study, to detect underserviced areas and to measure the availability of buses throughout the week. Measuring accessibility and mobility were visualised primarily with the help of Geographic Information System [GIS] and data from General Transit Feed Specification [GTFS]. This is conducted through a quantitative method by comparing population data, ridership count and public transport data. The data is collected from GTFS, Region Uppsala and Uppsala University. In the results, the supply of buses in central Uppsala meets the demand of the commuters, and most importantly during peak hours. The exchange points are valuable for commuters to execute their journeys by having broader route alternatives to choose from. Nevertheless, the usage of bus stations is sufficient in most parts of Uppsala. However, there are certain areas in central Uppsala that are lacking accessibility to bus stations.

The 3rd generation partnership program (3GPP) has in recent years started working on integratingnon-terrestrial networks (NTN) into the 5G eco-system. This thesis focuses on the mobility between NTN and TN, which is of great importance if 5G NTN is to provide seamless and limitless connectivity. The target of this thesis is to understand and improve the mobility performance ofnon-terrestrial and terrestrial networks in a heterogeneous scenario. We first analyze data from system-level simulations of rural deployment scenarios when altering the parameters of the A3 measurement event and and then we further evaluate the use of a new NTN-specific distance-based measurement event, the D1 measurement event. We also evaluate the impact of needing toperform GNSS measurements when performing handovers from a terrestrial to a non-terrestrialnetwork. The results show that acquiring GNSS data during the handover procedure significantly increases handover delay time but does not heavily impact overall network performance. Additionally, the results show that by changing the parameters of the A3 measurement event and using the D1measurement event, ping-pong events between NTN-TN and unnecessary handovers to NTN canbe significantly reduced and improve the overall network performance.

Countries and cities around the world are searching for ways to plan urban development to accommodate the growing demand for public infrastructure and amenities due to high rates of urbanization. Urban policies deemed to be successful are often adopted by other cities and hence applied across contexts. Urban Policy Mobility (UPM) theories study the ways in which political relationships, power dynamics, and other potential drivers influence the circulation of urban policies. UPM provides a guiding framework to analyze the policymaking associated with mobilized urban policies to understand the socio-spatial processes that motivate the adoption of urban policies from elsewhere. This dissertation engages with the UPM literature by investigating the assemblage and implementation processes of a mobilized urban policy to explore how the fixed socio-spatial processes embedded within a particular planning culture interact with and absorb a flowing urban policy. The term flowing in this study refers to the process of transposing policies from one place to another. Little attention has been paid to how the planning culture in a developing country can shape the adoption (or non-adoption) of certain policy elements, and what challenges arise during the implementation of a flowing urban policy. Given this context, this study answers two research questions: (a) How does urban policy mobility unpack in practice in response to local socio-spatial processes? and (b) What challenges emerge when policies are transposed into new urban policy environments that are dissimilar from those in which they originated? A case study methodology was used to study the changes that occurred when a Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) urban policy was introduced in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A qualitative content analysis of archival resources, documents, and semi-structured interviews revealed how local urban planning conditions and challenges influenced Riyadh's TOD assemblage and implementation. Public officials and consultants from Riyadh, national officials, and experts were interviewed to develop a clear understanding of the TOD policy assemblage and implementation processes. The two main findings from this research are that: 1) there was an incomplete translation of TOD into the local planning culture, primarily due to Riyadh's stronger emphasis on the density, diversity, and design features of TOD and less concern with the sustainability dimensions; and 2) several governance and prioritization challenges emerged during the policy implementation process, which stem from institutional constraints and institutional and resource gaps. This research expands the UPM field by tracing the trajectory of policy mutation due to local socio-spatial processes. Additionally, this study provides a conceptual framework that synthesizes three heterogeneous elements: planning culture, planning policy, and policy carriers. It offers a methodological contribution that advances UPM analysis to better explain policy mutation. This study can be used as a cautionary tale for officials engaged in adopting urban policies that originate in other jurisdictions. / Doctor of Philosophy / City officials around the world are looking beyond their borders for urban policies that can promote sustainability and improve quality of life. However, those officials rarely consider how differences between urban areas can alter the nature of policies being adopted. To address this challenge, the field of Urban Policy Mobility (UPM) emerged to shed light on how the unique local factors that shape each city environment affect what elements of an urban policy are and are not adopted. This study examines the changes that occurred when a Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) urban policy was introduced in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In order to learn about the changes and challenges associated with Riyadh's TOD policy, interviews were conducted with employees responsible for the policy. Additionally, TOD policy documents and other publications that contained information about Riyadh's TOD were reviewed to build a deeper understanding of why certain policy elements were implemented and others were not. This study found that: 1) the TOD policy was not completely translated into Riyadh, with greater emphasis placed on increasing building density, diversifying land uses, and enhancing design aesthetics, and less on other important policy elements that enhance economic and social sustainability; and 2) the implementation of the TOD policy led to governance challenges due to the differences in how urban planning is undertaken in Riyadh compared to western countries. This in-depth study of Riyadh's experience can inform other cities that are looking to implement urban policies borrowed from other countries.

Public transportation offers a crucial solution to the travel demand in light of national and global economic, energy, and environmental challenges. If implemented effectively, public transit offers an affordable, convenient, and sustainable transportation mode. Implementation of new technologies for information-harvesting may lead to more effective transit operations. This study examines the potential of automated data collection technologies to analyzing and understand the origin-destination flow patterns, which is essential for transit route planning and stop location placement. This thesis investigates the collection and analysis of data of passengers onboard San Luis Obispo Transit buses in February and March 2017 using Bluetooth (BT) and automatic passenger counter (APC) data. Five BlueMAC detectors were placed on SLO Transit buses to collect Bluetooth data. APC data was obtained from San Luis Obispo Transit. The datasets were used to establish a data processing method to exclude invalid detections, to identify and process origin and destination trips of passengers, and to make conclusions regarding passenger behavior. The filtering methods were applied to the Bluetooth data to extract counts of unique passenger information and to compare the filtered data to the ground-truth APC data. The datasets were also used to study the San Luis Obispo Downtown Farmer’s Market and its impact on transit ridership demand. The investigation revealed that after carefully employing the filters on BT data there were no consistent patterns in differences between unique passenger counts obtained from APC data and the BT data. As a result, one should be careful in employing BT data for transit OD estimation. Not every passenger enables Bluetooth or owns a Bluetooth device, so relying on the possession of Bluetooth-enabled devices may not lead to a random sample, resulting in misleading travel patterns. Based on the APC data, it was revealed that transit ridership is 40% higher during the days during which Higuera Street in Downtown San Luis Obispo is used for Farmer’s Market – a classic example of tactical urbanism. Increase in transit ridership is one of the aspects of tactical urbanism that may be further emphasized. With rapidly-evolving data collection technologies, transit data collection methods could expand beyond the traditional onboard survey. The lessons learned from this study could be expanded to provide a robust and detailed data source for transit operations and planning.

Communities for Older Adults: Rising to Integrate a Driver’s Education Resource Program (COA-RIDER) serves as a guide for leaders of local health and community welfare groups, including health-related personnel, that are interested in organizing and expanding a driving resource program in their local communities. This program is a response to the issue of limited community driving resource programs for older adults, many of whom will remain driving as they age. The COA-RIDER program aims to have more community organizations host and collect data for research to sustain future driving resource programs for older adults. Working in collaboration with various individuals, groups, and organizations can build cohesion among members of the community. This program is an opportunity for community members to gain a better understanding of professional roles and duties across different disciplines and fields. Collectively, all can help in the developmental process of providing a beneficial health and wellness resource program for aging drivers. Most importantly, this program not only educates on the importance of addressing mental, physical, and social health; it advocates for older adults to stay connected in their communities through driving, community mobility options, and local resources so that they can remain independent for as long as possible.

The understanding and study of electron transport in semiconductor systems has been the instigation behind the growth of semiconductor electronics industry which has enabled technological developments that are part of our everyday lives. However, most materials exhibit diffusive electron transport where electrons scatter off disorder (impurities, phonons, defects, etc.) inevitably present in the system, and lose their momentum. Advances in material science have led to the discovery of materials which are essentially disorder-free and exhibit exceptionally high mobilities, enabling transport physics beyond diffusive transport. In this work, we explore non-diffusive transport regimes, namely, the ballistic and hydrodynamic regimes in a high-mobility two-dimensional electron system in a GaAs quantum well in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. The hydrodynamic regime exhibits collective fluid-like behavior of electrons which leads to the formation of current vortices, attributable to the dominance of electron-electron interactions in this regime. The ballistic regime occurs at low temperatures, where electron-electron interactions are weak, constraining the electrons to scatter predominantly against the device boundaries. To study these non-diffusive regimes, we fabricate mesoscopic devices with multiple point contacts on the heterostructure, and perform variable-temperature (4.1 K to 40 K) zero-field nonlocal resistance measurements at various locations in the device to map the movement of electrons. The experiments, along with interpretation using kinetic simulations, demarcate hydrodynamic and ballistic regimes and establish the dominant role of electron-electron interactions in the hydrodynamic regime. To further understand the role of electron-electron interactions, we perform nonlocal resistance measurements in the presence of magnetic field in transverse magnetic focusing geometries under variable temperature (0.39 K to 36 K). Using our experimental results and insights from the kinetic simulations, we quantify electron-electron scattering length, while also highlighting the importance of electron-electron interactions even in ballistic transport. At a more fundamental level, we reveal the presence of current vortices in both hydrodynamic and surprisingly, ballistic regimes both in the presence and absence of magnetic field. We demonstrate that even the ballistic regime can manifest negative nonlocal resistances which should not be considered as the hallmark signature of hydrodynamic regime. The work sheds a new light on both hydrodynamic and ballistic transport in high-mobility solid-state systems, highlighting the similarities between these non-diffusive regimes and at the same time providing a way of effectively demarcating them using innovative device design, measurement schemes and one-to-one modeling. The similarities stem from total electron system momentum conservation in both the hydrodynamic and ballistic regimes. The work also presents a sensitive and precise experimental technique for measuring electron-electron scattering length, which is a fundamental quantity in solid-state physics. / Doctor of Philosophy / Electrons are the charged particles that are bound around the nuclei of atoms. But sometimes in a solid material electrons break free away from the nuclei and wander around. They are then the carriers of electric current ubiquitous in our daily lives as in our homes, and in our electronic devices such as smartphones and computers. Often an analogy is made between the flow of electric current in a material and the flow of water in a stream. However, the analogy does not hold well for most materials. In most materials the motion of electrons can be thought of as balls in a pinball machine - their movement hindered and randomized by collisions with the countless defects and impurities present in the material they travel through. However, recently scientists have been able to synthesize ultraclean materials, where electrons can indeed mimic the flow of water under the right conditions. In this aptly-named hydrodynamic regime, electrons predominantly interact with each other and that leads to the formation of current whirlpools or vortices similar to those forming in water. A telling signature of this regime is a negative electrical resistance appearing near the location of the vortex. When the interactions between electrons are weak, such as at very low temperatures, electrons move along straight-line trajectories until they hit and bounce off the device edges, similar to billiard balls. This low-temperature phenomenon is called ballistic transport. In this work we reveal that measurement of negative resistance and formation of current vortices are not unique to the hydrodynamic regime but can occur in the ballistic regime as well. It is indeed counterintuitive that electrons moving like billiards balls can behave similarly to electrons flowing like water. The similarities can be traced back to a fundamental physics conservation law active in both situations, namely momentum conservation. To experimentally realize the tests, we use a very high purity semiconductor material GaAs/AlGaAs and fabricate tiny devices on the material with a cutting-edge design, capable of precisely measuring resistance at various locations along the device to map the movement of electrons. The simulations of the novel physics indeed reveal current vortices of various sizes in the ballistic regime, in agreement with the experimental data showing negative resistance. In another experiment, we apply a magnetic field, making the electrons move in circular paths. If uninterrupted, electrons complete half circles and are collected through an opening in the device, giving resistance peaks in experiments. Due to electron-electron interactions, the electrons on their circular trajectory are interrupted by other electrons which leads to a decay in resistance peaks. This decay is utilized to measure the strength of electron-electron interactions. The work has both fundamental and applied implications. The existence of whirlpools shows that the electron momentum is not lost by collisions, and that in turn means that the conduction of electrical current in these regimes is inherently efficient. This opens up avenues for electronic devices which are faster, more functional and more power efficient than present electronic devices.

Climate migration has been identified as an urgent issue that will likely add greater complexity to existing climate change planning efforts (Black, 2011; Ahsan, 2011). Existing climate migration literature has primarily focused on international migration and the Global South, offering limited applicability to internal conditions in developed countries due to the issue’s high context dependency (Hoffman, 2020). Local and municipal planners have a responsibility to pursue evidence-based climate adaptation strategies (Mitchell, 2020). Yet, planners lack reliable data to forecast potential changes to regional migration based on repeated exposure to climate stressors. To date, research has been primarily qualitative in nature, leaving a need for quantitative, spatial studies to detect larger patterns in comparison to survey and interview-based findings (Piguet et al., 2018). Within developed countries, research that integrates environmental factors into typical migration estimation methods used by community development and economic planners is needed to determine the extent that rapid environment change may alter existing migration trends. In beginning to address this gap, this study tests the relationship between wildfire displacement events (i.e. evacuation events) and household out-migration rates amid a host of competing socioeconomic factors for all western US counties during years 2016-2019. Wildfire displacement data from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) is combined with out-migration estimates from the IRS SOI program in a times series, then joined to cross-sectional census data on county demographics to form a panel dataset for investigation. Modeling results show an expected 1.5% decrease in household out-migration rates for county-years experiencing repeated wildfire displacement events in comparison to non-treatment county-years. These results suggest a potential lowering of mobility capacity or desire within impacted communities for areas experiencing repeated wildfire. Whether this is linked to impacts on economic resources, i.e. exaggeration of underlying vulnerabilities, or suppressed desire to move is unclear. Direct implications for planners depend on greater understanding of causality. The study suggests that climate-related wildfire migration in the US warrants continued research, especially with focus on equity implications of unequal access to migration as a method of climate adaptation.

No / In the future mobile network, satellites will operate alongside cellular networks in order to provide seamless connectivity irrespective of the location of the user. Such a service scenario requires that the next generation of mobility management (MM) procedures are able to ensure terminal and user mobility on a global scale. This paper considers how the principles of Mobile-IP can be used to develop MM procedures for a heterogeneous access network, comprizing of satellite and cellular elements, connected to an IP core network.Initially, the system architecture is described. This is followed by a discussion of issues related to MM, where location, address and handover management are considered. A description of the signaling protocols for macro-mobility using Mobile-IP is then presented, emphasizing the need to minimize the change to the existing access network procedures. Finally, the performance of the protocols is analyzed in terms of the additional signaling time required for registration and handover.