The impacts of a rail transit system on residential property values have been examined for many metropolitan areas in the United States, China, and other countries, yet there have been few comparison studies between countries. Studies have reported both the positive effects of rail transit resulting from improved accessibility as well as the nuisance effects from noise, pollution, crime, and unsightliness. The net effects of a rail transit system could be mixed, and there has been no agreement on which would dominate. This study used METRORail in Houston, Texas, and the Metro in Shanghai, China, as empirical cases and compared their effects on nearby residential property values. A hedonic price model with ordinary linear regression was used in the case study of Shanghai's rail transit lines. The Houston case study applied ordinary linear regression and multilevel regression techniques to examine the hierarchical structures of spatial data explicitly. The modeling results from both cases suggest that the overall effects of rail transit lines on residential property values are significantly positive. Notable variations of rail transit effects were also observed at various distance ranges and time spans.

In the present research, magnetically recyclable polyphosphazene (PCTP)/Ag (MPCTP-Ag) nanoparticles are prepared by a green path, in which PCTP was used to modify Fe3O4 nanoparticles and provide nucleation sites for the reduction of Ag nanoparticles. The prepared MPCTP-Ag nanoparticles were characterized by TEM, SEM, EDS, BET, XRD, vibrating sample magnometry, XPS, and TGA analysis. The catalytic performances of the MPCTP-Ag nanoparticles for the degradation of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP), methylene blue (MB), methyl orange (MO), and their mixtures in the presence of NaBH4 were studied. The main factors affecting the catalytic performance, including temperature, reactant concentration, and catalyst dosage, were investigated. The results showed that the MPCTP-Ag nanoparticles exhibited excellent catalytic activity for the degradation of all three targeted organic contaminants (4-NP, MB, and MO). Moreover, the product retains its catalytic activity after being reused five times by magnetic separation. The results showed that MPCTP-Ag composite nanoparticles were efficient recyclable magnetic nanocatalysts with promising application in environment protection.

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