The Faculty Notebook, April 2017

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost

The anatomy of the 2019 Chilean social unrest

We analyze the 2019 Chilean social unrest episode, consisting of a sequence of events, through the lens of an epidemic-like model that considers global contagious dynamics. We adjust the parameters to the Chilean social unrest aggregated public data available from the Undersecretary of Human Rights, and observe that the number of violent events follows a well-defined pattern already observed in various public disorder episodes in other countries since the sixties. Although the epidemic-like models display a single event that reaches a peak followed by an exponential decay, we add standard perturbation schemes that may produce a rich temporal behavior as observed in the 2019 Chilean social turmoil. Although we only have access to aggregated data, we are still able to fit it to our model quite well, providing interesting insights on social unrest dynamics.Comment: To appear in Chao

Methodological Approach for the Development of a Simplified Residential Building Energy Estimation in Temperate Climate

Energy ratings and minimum requirements for thermal envelopes and heating and air conditioning systems emerged as tools to minimize energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, improve energy e ciency and promote greater transparency with regard to energy use in buildings. In Latin America, not all countries have building energy e ciency regulations, many of them are voluntary and more than 80% of the existing initiatives are simplified methods and are centered in energy demand analysis and the compliance of admissible values for di erent indicators. However, the application of these tools, even when simplified, is reduced. The main objective is the development of a simplified calculation method for the estimation of the energy consumption of multifamily housing buildings. To do this, an energy model was created based on the real use and occupation of a reference building, its thermal envelope and its thermal system’s performance. This model was simulated for 42 locations, characterized by their climatic conditions, whilst also considering the thermal transmittance fulfilment. The correlation between energy consumption and the climatic conditions is the base of the proposed method. The input data are seven climatic characteristics. Due to the sociocultural context of Latin America, the proposed method is estimated to have more possible acceptance and applications than other more complex methods, increasing the rate of buildings with an energy assessment. The results have demonstrated a high reliability in the prediction of the statistical models created, as the determination coe cient (R2) is nearly 1 for cooling and heating consumption

The Meanings of Musics and Technologies in the Twentieth Century: Case Studies in Postwar Pop, Afrofuturist Jazz, and Chilean Electronic Music

This thesis analyzes Les Paul and Mary Ford’s high-tech pop, Sun Ra’s proto-afrofuturist jazz, and Chilean electronic music to explore how new modes of musical expression and technological advances were shaped in relation to gender, race, and political policy. Les Paul’s development of new recording techniques reflected postwar attitudes toward scientific progress, and the way he presented these “New Sounds” with his wife Mary Ford reinforced gendered notions of domestic space. Sun Ra’s appropriation of Space Age themes with the Arkestra was a synthesis of 1950s Black radicalism and racial uplift initiatives from his early life in Birmingham, Alabama that subverted dominant narratives of technological agency. The rapid development of electronic music in Chile was made possible by government support of educational and cultural institutions, which quickly evaporated when dictator Augusto Pinochet rose to power. These case studies reveal how both music and technology are woven into the tapestry of history and culture that gives them meaning

desire lines: literal

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Plastic pollution of rivers: citizen scientists investigate litter quantities, composition, and sources

The pollution of the environment with anthropogenic litter, especially plastics, has become a major global problem. Large quantities of litter pose a hazard to hundreds of species, infrastructure, and human health. While the ocean pollution of plastics has been the research focus of most studies to date, the majority of litter derives from land and rivers play a key role in the transport of litter from inland sources to the sea. As litter sources are very diverse, it is imperative to investigate a variety of environments to gain an overview of the extent of pollution and derive mitigation measures. Citizen science (involving the general public in research) is a promising approach to collect such data over large geographic areas. This thesis presents the results of the citizen science campaign Plastic Pirates, involving schoolchildren in the research of anthropogenic litter pollution of rivers. The project was conducted in Germany and Chile, involving (since 2016) over 15,000 schoolchildren and their teachers. The studies presented here analysed data from the campaigns of 2016 and 2017 of the Plastic Pirates. The results show that litter pollution of the riparian environment is ubiquitous in both countries: larger litter at the sampling sites occurred at almost all sampling sites (91% in Germany, 100% in Chile), including litter hazardous to humans (found at 89% of sampling sites in Germany, in Chile this analysis was not conducted). Litter quantities at the riverside averaged 0.5 items and 1.8 items per m2 in Germany and Chile, respectively. In both countries, plastics and cigarette butts were among the most frequently found litter items. The most important source of much of this litter are recreational visitors (i.e. people passing spare time at the riverside, consuming food). In addition, in Chile, residents and people illegally dumping litter have also been identified as important sources. Small plastic particles (meso- and microplastics, i.e. particles in the size range of 24.99 to 1 mm) have also frequently been found in the nets used to sample the river water (in 57% of samples in Germany, and 43% of samples in Chile). Considering that only particles larger than 1 mm were sampled, it can be assumed that the pollution by even smaller particles is common in the two countries. In Germany, some hotspots of pollution with small plastic particles were discovered, meaning sites where many particles were found (over 50 particles per hour). Potential sources of these particles were the plastic producing industry and wastewater treatment plants. The employed citizen science approach, involving schoolchildren and their teachers, proved valuable to collect many data in entire Germany and large sections of Chile. A wide variety of rivers were investigated, including smaller rivers, usually not in the focus of riparian litter studies. In addition to the scientific data collected by the schoolchildren, citizen science is a promising approach to raise the environmental awareness and scientific literacy of participants, and, in this process, plays an important role towards the opening of research processes to the general public