Rethinking the Foundational Critiques of Lawyers in Social Movements

This Article argues that the current moment invites reconsideration of these critiques. The rise of new social movements—from marriage equality to Black Lives Matter to the recent mobilization against President Trump’s immigration order—and the response of a new generation of movement lawyers eager to lend support has refocused attention on the appropriate role that lawyers should play in advancing progressive social change. Rather than fall back on familiar critical themes, the time is ripe for developing a new affirmative vision

Rethinking the Foundational Critiques of Lawyers in Social Movements

This Article argues that the current moment invites reconsideration of these critiques. The rise of new social movements—from marriage equality to Black Lives Matter to the recent mobilization against President Trump’s immigration order—and the response of a new generation of movement lawyers eager to lend support has refocused attention on the appropriate role that lawyers should play in advancing progressive social change. Rather than fall back on familiar critical themes, the time is ripe for developing a new affirmative vision

Dissolved Oxygen Monitoring in Kings River and Leatherwood Creek

The Clean Water Act (CWA) establishes the basic structure used to regulate water quality. Under the CWA, States are required to assess water bodies relative to water‐quality standards and designated beneficial uses and then to submit lists of impaired bodies every other year to the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). In 2015, at least 4,800 water bodies were listed as impaired by dissolved oxygen across the US (USEPA, 2015). Aquatic species like fish and macroinvertebrates depend on adequate dissolved oxygen for survival. Low dissolved oxygen can lead to fish kills, reduced aquatic diversity, and nuisance smells from anaerobic conditions – ultimately, low dissolved oxygen concentrations result in water bodies not being able to meet the aquatic life designated use

An Experimental Platform for Investigating Decision and Collaboration Technologies in Time-Sensitive Mission Control Operations

This report describes the conceptual design and detailed architecture of an experimental platform developed to support investigations of novel decision and collaboration technologies for complex, time-critical mission control operations, such as military command and control and emergency response. In particular, the experimental platform is designed to enable exploration of novel interface and interaction mechanisms to support both human-human collaboration and human-machine collaboration for mission control operations involving teams of human operators engaged in supervisory control of intelligent systems, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Further, the experimental platform is designed to enable both co-located and distributed collaboration among operations team members, as well as between team members and relevant mission stakeholders. To enable initial investigations of new information visualization, data fusion, and data sharing methods, the experimental platform provides a synthetic task environment for a representative collaborative time-critical mission control task scenario. This task scenario involves a UAV operations team engaged in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) activities. In the experimental task scenario, the UAV team consists of one mission commander and three operators controlling multiple, homogeneous, semi-autonomous UAVs. In order to complete its assigned missions, the UAV team must coordinate with a ground convoy, an external strike team, and a local joint surveillance and target attack radar system (JSTARS). This report details this task scenario, including the possible simulation events that can occur and the logic governing the simulation dynamics. In order to perform human-in-the-loop experimentation within the synthetic task environment, the experimental platform also consists of a physical laboratory designed to emulate a miniature command center. The Command Center Laboratory comprises a number of large-screen displays, multi-screen operator stations, and mobile, tablet-style devices. This report details the physical configuration and hardware components of this Command Center Laboratory. Details are also provided of the software architecture used to implement the synthetic task environment and experimental interface technologies to facilitate user experiments in this laboratory. The report also summarizes the process of conducting an experiment in the experimental platform, including details of scenario design, hardware and software instrumentation, and participant training. Finally, the report suggests several improvements that could be made to the experimental platform based on insights gained from initial user experiments that have been conducted in this environment.Prepared For Boeing, Phantom Work

Hops Crowning Trial

As the acreage of hops continues to rapidly expand in the northeast, there is a great need for production knowledge specific to our region. Downy mildew has been identified as the primary pathogen plaguing our hop yards. This disease causes reduced yield, poor hop quality, and can cause the plant to die. Control measures that reduce disease infection and spread while minimizing the impact on the environment are desperately needed for the region. Mechanical control is one means to reduce downy mildew pressure in hop yards. Scratching is a practice initiated in the early spring when new growth has just emerged from the soil. The first shoots have an irregular growth rate and are not the most desirable for producing hop cones later in the season. Removal of this new growth through mechanical means helps to remove downy mildew inoculum that has overwintered in the crown. The top of the crown itself can be removed to further eliminate overwintering downy mildew. This practice is typically referred to as “Crowning”. While crowning is known to be effective in the Pacific Northwest, there is no established time frame for crowning in the Northeast. The goal of this project was to evaluate the impact of crowning/scratching at two different time periods on hop downy mildew pressure as well as hop yield and quality

Hops Weed Management Trial

As the acreage of hops continues to grow in the northeast, there is increasing need for regionally specific agronomic information. The majority of hop production and research is conducted in the Pacific Northwest, a region that has a much drier climate than our own. The University of Vermont (UVM) Extension has carried out a number of trials to build relevant experience on small scale hop production in our wet and cool climate

Hop Variety Trial: Results from Year Four

Great interest has been kindled in producing hops in the Northeast. While hops were historically grown in the Northeast, they have not been commercially produced in this region for over a hundred years. With this loss of regional production knowledge, the advancements of cropping science, and the development of new varieties over the last few decades, a great need has been identified for region-specific, science-based research on this reemerging crop. The vast majority of hops production in the United States occurs in the arid Pacific Northwest on a very large scale in a dry climate. In the Northeast, the average hop yard is well under 10 acres and the humid climate provides challenges not addressed by the existing hops research. Knowledge is needed on how to produce hops on a small-scale in our region. With this in mind, in August of 2010, the UVM Extension Northwest Crops and Soils Program initiated an organic hops variety trial at Borderview Research Farm in Alburgh, Vermont. The UVM Extension hop yard is trialing 22 publicly-available hop varieties and 3 additional varieties from Dr. John Henning’s breeding program in Oregon. The goals of these efforts are to find hop varieties that demonstrate disease and pest resistance, high yields, and present desirable characteristics to brewers. Hops are a perennial crop – most varieties reach full cone production in year three

Cognitive Task Analysis for the LCS Operator

In support of Plan Understanding for Mixed-initiative control of Autonomous systems (PUMA)The following Tables and Figures detail the cognitive task analysis (CTA) performed to determine the information requirements needed to support a single operator located aboard the futuristic Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). This operator is responsible for controlling four underwater unmanned vehicles in conjunction with a UAV operating on a shared network. • Table 1 is a scenario task overview that breaks the overall mission into 3 phases (planning, execution, and recovery) and then details the subtasks for each of the 3 mission phases. • Figure 1 is an event flow diagram that demonstrates what events must occur in a temporal order for each of the 3 phases. There are three basic event types in Figure 1: 1) a loop (L) that represents a process that occurs in a looping fashion until some predetermined event occurs, 2) a decision (D) that represents some decision that is required from the LCS operator, and 3) a process (P) which requires some human-computer interaction to support the required tasks. In each event block, an alphanumeric code is included which labels that particular event type (L#, D#, P#). This label is important because later information requirements will be mapped to one of these events. • Table 2, which details the situation awareness (SA) requirements for the LCS Operator for each of the 3 mission phases and associated subtasks. Each of these SA requirements is mapped directly to one or more events in Figure 1. Because the decisions in Figure 1 represent critical events that require detailed understanding of what information and knowledge is needed to support the operator’s decision-making process, decision ladders were constructed for the diamonds and loops in Figure 1 that correspond to an involved decision process to resolve the question being posed at that stage in the event flow (Figures 2-4). Decision ladders are modeling tools that capture the states of knowledge and information-processing activities necessary to reach a decision. Decision ladders can help identify the information that either the automation and/or the human will need to perform or monitor a task. Decision Ladders, illustrate the need not only for the same information identified by the cognitive task analysis, but the need for several other pieces of information such as the need for visual or aural alerts in contingency situations. In Figures 2-4, three versions are included that detail (a) the basic decision ladder, (b) the decision ladder with corresponding display requirements, and (c) the decision ladder with possible levels of automation. • Figure 2 represents the automated target recognition (ATR) decision ladder (D3 from Event Flow): (a) decision ladder, (b) decision ladder with corresponding display requirements, and (c) decision ladder with possible levels of automation. • Figure 3 shows the decision ladder information and knowledge requirements for the sentry handoff (L3 from Event Flow). • Figure 4, the UUV Recovery Decision Ladder (D7 from Event Flow), illustrates what information is nominally needed. Since this phase was not a major focus, the decision ladder is not as detailed as it could be. This should be a point of focus in Phase II. Lastly Figure 5 demonstrates the coordination loop that must occur in the case where a handoff failure occurs (for a number of reasons to include equipment failure, communication delays, etc.) Again, because the multi-player coordination issues are not a primary focus in Phase I but are a significant consideration for any follow-on phases.Prepared for Charles River Analytic

Hop Crowning Trial

Downy mildew has been identified as the primary pathogen plaguing our northeastern hop yards. This disease causes reduced yield, poor hop quality, and can cause the plant to die in severe cases. Control measures that reduce disease infection and spread while minimizing the impact on the environment are desperately needed for the region. Mechanical control is one means to reduce downy mildew pressure in hop yards. Scratching, pruning, or crowning is a practice initiated in the early spring when new growth has just emerged from the soil