Spring 2012	11.188 Project Summary Table	Time: May 16 (Wednesday), 2012, 2:30~4:30PM     Room: 9-554
Start Time	NO	Name	Project Title	Project Abstract	Format (PPT, PDF or others)
2:30 PM	1	Noor A. Doukmak	Correlation between MCAS Scores and Poverty in Massachusetts	This project analyzes the correlation between the percentage of students who score below P 'proficient' on the 10th grade 2011 MCAS exam and the percentage of poverty in nearby block groups in Massachusetts. MCAS scores for individual schools are obtained from profiles.doe.mass.edu/state_report/mcas.aspx. Poverty demographic data is obtained from the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Imagery and visual overlay will be the main drivers of interpretation of the results. Student test scores are represented by relatively small and large points representing the schools from which they come. Income level is represented by thematic shading by county based on percentage of poverty. The results are more qualitative than quantitative, and visual interpretation of resulting maps are indicative of the intensity of the correlations present. Scatterplots displaying the relationship between poverty levels and low test scores allow for a brief discussion of the ease with which data may be manipulated to obtain different conclusions.	PPT generated on a Mac
	2	Casey R. Stein	Active Landfills and Environmental Justice Populations in Massachusetts	The purpose of this project is to look at the locations of landfills in Massachusetts.  The data layers include information on active, inactive, and closed landfills, population density, environmental justice populations, land use, and roads. Siting landfills is often difficult due to the “not in my backyard” phenomena - although landfills benefit the public at large, they impose local costs.  This project will analyze whether active landfills are disproportionately sited in areas with environmental justice populations.  It will also look at the relationship between landfills, land use, major roads, and population density.	PPT generated on a PC
	3	Yin-Jen Wang	Residents Commute Method Verses The Vicinity to Public Transportation	In the MA census data, there is one category of information about workers’ means of transportation and the commute time (SF3, P30-P35); it has listed detailed information such as car ownership and average commute time, commute method, etc. However, these information were not specify a distinct relation between the favored method of transportation. This project will overlay the census data with the transportation routes to show the spacial relationship. On the other hand, Boston is known as a college town and many college students commute via MBTA or buses instead of automobile. Nevertheless, census do not specify the commute habit of the student groups since they usually live in the institute dormitories and the census does not single out the population of current college students. For the purpose of this project, I will look into the population groups between 18-30 years old and use the demographic map as the base, analyze the relationship with their residency and the route of public transportation.	PPT
	4	Duong T Huynh	Kendall Square's Urban Growth	Situated directly northeast of MIT's campus, Kendall Square's growth has been inevitably tied to that of the institute. Within the past decade, MIT's growing partnerships with research and industry has drawn administrative and research facilities towards its surrounding areas, thereby generating the growth of Kendall Square. Recently, the area's lack of after hours activities and traffic has caused the city of Cambridge and Kendall Square's developers and big players to work towards drawing more businesses, food and health services and entertainment venues to the area. In this study, we assess Kendall's growth through population, income and housing value data as collected through the Neighborhood Change Dataset from Geolytics (1990, 2000, 2010). For regional comparison, Kendall's data representation will be juxtaposed beside that of Iman and Central Squares.	PDF from Mac
3:00 PM	1	Jessica C Agatstein	Fracking Where? An investigation into the character of communities with high densities of hydraulically fractured wells in Texas and Pennsylvania	The growth of hydraulic fracturing, a technique used to extract oil and gas from unconventional sources, has prompted a great deal of environmental concern and political response in recent years. With a limited scientific understanding of how the technique could affect drinking water resources, communities across the nation have attempted to confront issues of regulating the practice to varying degrees of success. This project seeks to understand the character of communities grappling with this issue -- large densities of hydraulically fractured wells -- focusing on two states with a great deal of hydraulic fracturing but remarkably dissimilar political responses to such oil and gas development: Texas and Pennsylvania.  More simply, it seeks to answer the question: what kinds of communities have large amounts of hydraulic fracturing?  It addresses this question using thematic maps and overlays of county-level data in the two states on communities’ income, race/ethnicities, local governance and density of hydraulically fractured wells.  I find that counties in Pennsylvania with high densities of hydraulically fractured wells tend to be governed by many small city governments and are often more rural, white, and poor than other counties in Pennsylvania.  In contrast, counties in Texas with a high density of hydraulically fractured wells tend to contain only one or two cities and vast amounts of unincorporated land; these counties also vary much more in income and ethnicity, though counties in northern Texas tend to be wealthier and have fewer minorities than counties in southern Texas.	PDF
	2	Alison M Sheppard	The Central Mexico Megalopolis: Exploring Relationships Between Urban Areas in a Mega-Region	A megalopolis, or megaregion, is “a clustered network of cities with a population of about 10 million or more.”1 According to Gottmann, there are two main criteria for a group of cities to be considered a megalopolis. They must have a “polynuclear structure” and a “manifold concentration,” that is, the presence of multiple urban nuclei, which exist independently of each other yet are integrated in a special way relative to the sites outside their area. According to PROAIRE, the Metropolitan Commission on the Environment in Mexico City, “the megalopolis of central Mexico was defined to be integrated by the metropolitan areas of Mexico City, Puebla, Cuernavaca, Toluca, and Pachuca, which may also conform complex subregional rings themselves…The megalopolis of central Mexico is integrated by 173 municipalities, and the 16 boroughs of the Federal District, with an approximate total population of almost 35 million people.”2 For this project, I will explore the way in which the megalopolis of Central Mexico fits into this definition, and what can be said about the connections within this area. The metropolitan areas that are part of this megaregion are each unique yet inextricably connected, and I will analyze, through a series of thematic maps, the connections that exist and then make conclusions about their relative strengths. I will perform this analysis across the different metropolitan areas at one point in time, in order to see what different connections exist across the region. To do this, I have chosen to use a few key indicators of the relationships, including urbanized area, population, road networks, and railroads. If more useful data becomes available, I hope to incorporate this as well. Thus far, analysis has revealed that the strength of connections between certain areas is stronger than others, and that in these relationships, different connecting factors hold a variety of weights. For instance, in some, transit connections are far stronger, whereas in others, urbanized areas themselves extend, creating the connection.	PDF
	3	Cheng (Kathy) Cheng	Spatial Distribution of Education: Agglomeration and its Impact on School Performance	The state of education in the United States has been one of the most pressing issues of our time. We want to know where the good schools are located, are there schools that serve high need areas, what are the conditions that set up a school’s success. In this project, I intend to look at public school districts in Massachusetts in order to compare school performance to socio-economic status over time. I will be using MCAS scores from the Massachusetts Department of Education 1998-2011 in order to measure education performance and census data in order to measure various socioeconomic conditions. I will be creating a series of thematic maps showing school performance based on a relative ranking of MCAS scores and then showing socioeconomic conditions such as income per capita and poverty rates, while also mapping school locations using data from MassGIS. I intend to create maps showing both a static analysis of 2011 and a dynamic analysis showing how these areas and their circumstances have changed over time. Because education data tends to be fairly disparate across state lines, I will be focusing my analysis on Massachusetts. While we expect to see high performing schools in areas with relatively higher socioeconomic conditions, it would be interesting to see how trends have perhaps changed over time and if there are discrepancies in performance in the two main subjects tested in the MCAS, math and language.	PPT
	4	Brittany Duffy	Creative Minds Academy for the Arts Site Feasibility Analysis	Recently, a wealthy resident of Massachusetts has decided to open a private school with the intended goal of becoming a prestigious academy for children interested in arts and music.  The private school will serve children in grades K-12, and stands out from other private and charter schools in Eastern Massachusetts because of its focus on a specialized academic program.  The founder of the school would like for the campus to remain in the Eastern Massachusetts area, as a way of remaining close to Boston and the surrounding metropolitan area.  The goal is for the campus to be close enough to a number of densely populated areas to be commuting distance from those areas.  Therefore, the school should fall within an area that has close proximity to a number of Eastern Massachusetts block groups that have high densities of families with children under the age of 18.  Further, I will look at other socioeconomic factors that will contribute to the school’s success and popularity.  I will analyze block groups that have high levels of income that may have adults willing to pay the high cost of tuition in order to have their children enrolled in a specialized school.  Another avenue I plan to explore, will be discovering competing schools in the area.  As such, I will find other K-12 schools in the area that are private/charter/specialty and try to ascertain why they are located where they are.  Based on all of these observations, I will be able to determine the best site for where Creative Minds Academy should be located.
3:30 PM	1	Juhee Bae	Mapping Disaster Risks in Indonesia	Indonesia, a country made of several islands, is extraordinarily vulnerable to natural disasters, shown several major events in the past few decades. There have been floods due to rivers overflooding in 1996, 2002, 2007, and most recently in 2012. There have been several volcano explosions, as Indonesia lies along the "Ring of Fire", a famed circle of volcanic activity. Tsunamis, earthquakes, and landslides have also different parts of Indonesia.  There have been several articles in the past few years that decry the lack of Indonesian preparation for natural disasters, despite relatively good crisis responses. I will be mapping the different parts of the country measuring the risks due to flooding, volcanos, landslides, and earthquakes. I will be using several international datasets including datasets from the Gridded Population of the World, the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project, elevation data, and ESRI water bodies data. The results of this mapping would lead to discovering which areas are most at risk due to different types of disasters.	PPT, Mac
	2	Sarah W. Bindman	How do individuals perceive transportation infrastructure?	Transportation infrastructure is an important part of our urban fabric.  Everyone uses and benefits from it.  But how is it perceived?  Do people see transportation infrastructure as an amenity they want to live by or is it subject to NIMBYism?  What’s more, are different pieces of the infrastructure perceived differently?  I take up the case of Boston, Massachusetts and try to assess the implicit value of living next to major roads and transit hubs.
	3	Adam R Smith	Spatial Patterns of Educational Attainment and Socioeconomic Status	How much overlap is there between the level of education one has and socioeconomic status? I look at income/poverty figures from the 1990 and 2000 US census for the northen city of Boston, MA, and the southern city of New Orleans, LA.
	4	Jaswanth Madhavan	Cocaine Use in Massachusetts : An Exploratory Study	Cocaine is a highly addictive drug whose prevalence has increased in Massachusetts over the past several years. However, a quick look at cocaine-related hospital admissions in Massachusetts reveals interesting spatial patterns. The goal of this study is to explore such spatial patterns using demographic data, scholastic aptitude of students and racial profile. It is to be noted that this is an exploratory study that analyzes raw data to arrive at preliminary conclusions.	PPT, PC
4:00 PM	1	Matthew Archer	Socioeconomic Disparity and Access to the MBTA		PPT
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