398 research outputs found

    Water urbanism in Lagos: A case study of Makoko community

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    This research aims to establish water urbanism as an adaptable approach toward managing rapid urbanisation challenges in developing coastal cities. This study explores the growth of water urbanism in informal waterfront settlements as an ecological strategy that can be used to develop rich urbanism for coastal cities such as Lagos. Land reclamation techniques, primarily hydraulic sand-filling technology, are employed to create land in Lagos. Historically, land reclamation in Lagos has been utilised to accommodate the city's expanding population by recovering formerly inhospitable marshy or coastal territory. However, this prolonged acceptance has resulted in the elimination of creeks and wetlands throughout the city. While it has proven effective, artificial landscapes frequently require more upkeep than naturally occurring lands, and general degradation of the environment has resulted from poor maintenance. As 70% of the population of Lagos resides in informal settlements, the study argues that informal settlements should be planned and designed as part of the city. As a result of focusing on concerns in Lagos's informal water settlements, we are closer to reducing the effects of rising urbanisation, boosting the city's efficiency, and addressing climate challenges simultaneously. Learning from informal water settlements presents an opportunity to adopt sustainable urban practices that protect the environment and economic growth, enhance the quality of life through housing, and guarantee equitable land that includes the city's waters, better transportation networks, and essential infrastructure jobs. This study intends to illustrate the sustainability of informal water communities for the implementation of water urbanism, a sustainable technique for urban growth and climate action in Lagos

    SuperCDMS HVeV Run 2 Low-Mass Dark Matter Search, Highly Multiplexed Phonon-Mediated Particle Detector with Kinetic Inductance Detector, and the Blackbody Radiation in Cryogenic Experiments

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    There is ample evidence of dark matter (DM), a phenomenon responsible for ≈ 85% of the matter content of the Universe that cannot be explained by the Standard Model (SM). One of the most compelling hypotheses is that DM consists of beyond-SM particle(s) that are nonluminous and nonbaryonic. So far, numerous efforts have been made to search for particle DM, and yet none has yielded an unambiguous observation of DM particles. We present in Chapter 2 the SuperCDMS HVeV Run 2 experiment, where we search for DM in the mass ranges of 0.5--10⁎ MeV/cÂČ for the electron-recoil DM and 1.2--50 eV/cÂČ for the dark photon and the Axion-like particle (ALP). SuperCDMS utilizes cryogenic crystals as detectors to search for DM interaction with the crystal atoms. The interaction is detected in the form of recoil energy mediated by phonons. In the HVeV project, we look for electron recoil, where we enhance the signal by the Neganov-Trofimov-Luke effect under high-voltage biases. The technique enabled us to detect quantized e⁻hâș creation at a 3% ionization energy resolution. Our work is the first DM search analysis considering charge trapping and impact ionization effects for solid-state detectors. We report our results as upper limits for the assumed particle models as functions of DM mass. Our results exclude the DM-electron scattering cross section, the dark photon kinetic mixing parameter, and the ALP axioelectric coupling above 8.4 x 10⁻³⁎ cmÂČ, 3.3 x 10⁻Âč⁎, and 1.0 x 10⁻âč, respectively. Currently every SuperCDMS detector is equipped with a few phonon sensors based on the transition-edge sensor (TES) technology. In order to improve phonon-mediated particle detectors' background rejection performance, we are developing highly multiplexed detectors utilizing kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs) as phonon sensors. This work is detailed in chapter 3 and chapter 4. We have improved our previous KID and readout line designs, which enabled us to produce our first Ăž3" detector with 80 phonon sensors. The detector yielded a frequency placement accuracy of 0.07%, indicating our capability of implementing hundreds of phonon sensors in a typical SuperCDMS-style detector. We detail our fabrication technique for simultaneously employing Al and Nb for the KID circuit. We explain our signal model that includes extracting the RF signal, calibrating the RF signal into pair-breaking energy, and then the pulse detection. We summarize our noise condition and develop models for different noise sources. We combine the signal and the noise models to be an energy resolution model for KID-based phonon-mediated detectors. From this model, we propose strategies to further improve future detectors' energy resolution and introduce our ongoing implementations. Blackbody (BB) radiation is one of the plausible background sources responsible for the low-energy background currently preventing low-threshold DM experiments to search for lower DM mass ranges. In Chapter 5, we present our study for such background for cryogenic experiments. We have developed physical models and, based on the models, simulation tools for BB radiation propagation as photons or waves. We have also developed a theoretical model for BB photons' interaction with semiconductor impurities, which is one of the possible channels for generating the leakage current background in SuperCDMS-style detectors. We have planned for an experiment to calibrate our simulation and leakage current generation model. For the experiment, we have developed a specialized ``mesh TES'' photon detector inspired by cosmic microwave background experiments. We present its sensitivity model, the radiation source developed for the calibration, and the general plan of the experiment.</p

    Catching the Wave: Modernism and the Maritime Aesthetic

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    Maritime modernism is defined unambiguously by the structures and strictures of Empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The ocean was a facilitator of national and imperial expansion and development in a time where modernist texts were both critiquing and complicit in developing our understanding of maritime colonial rule. This thesis offers an innovative perspective upon Modernism’s interactions with the maritime situation of that period and explores how Modernist authors’ experiments and engagement with maritime settings repeatedly challenges our ways of reading the sea and the interrelation of modern geopolitics. Seas and oceans were shaped by the codification and re-definition of aqueous and archipelagic material space under imperial maritime power. Some modernist authors, such as Virginia Woolf, were products of that same imperial structure, coming from a privileged class. Others, such as James Joyce, grew up as colonial subjects, or, in the case of Joseph Conrad, left one imperial structure for another. This original study reframes Woolf and Joyce as writers of the maritime rather than the metropolis, joining Conrad in engaging with the seascape as a place of community, intimacy and memory as well as challenging it as an ever-changing geo-political and technologically evolving space: Woolf places her middle-class British subjects at the periphery of imperial space in To The Lighthouse (1927); Joyce’s characters in Ulysses (1922) are products of the British colonial system; Conrad’s work was requested and then rejected by the British Admiralty. All three authors’ works display the contradictory nature of their position within the declining British imperial structure. Their work reflected upon the imperial reorganization of the world’s oceans and the islands and countries which existed within them. Furthermore, my reading of Conrad’s Last Essays (1926), is of a neglected work that has not been read previously through a modernist lens. Last Essays provides a crucial glimpse into Conrad’s engagement with the late imperialist period and my chapter on this text finally aligns this work with that of other Modernist authors of the era. Similarly, for the first time, the expedition narratives of polar explorers in the first quarter of the twentieth century are read as modernist, allowing a pioneering examination of the fractured perspectives and internal journeys which are a feature of polar exploration, providing a crucial link between writers of modernism and the explorers’ own works. The originality of this thesis lies in its writing about the sea as a medium whereby these writers use the Modernist visual aesthetic of colour and light combined with an embracing of technology to examine fluid perspectives and alternate ways of seeing. This thesis offers a unique insight into a period where maritime imperial rhetoric was contested by Modernist writers, and how that rhetoric, in its desire to preserve the structure of empire, contributed to its decline

    Iterative musical collaboration as palimpsest: Suite Inversée and The Headroom Project

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    Suite inversée is a musical work, co-composed by the two authors asynchronously online by means of file transfer alone and digitally presented using a self-made web app called The Headroom Project. The Headroom Project mediates the compositional project during creation as well as allowing the listener to browse a historical thread that weaves through the developmental process: through this app, each audio file that was shared between the two composers can be heard and considered both in and out of the context of its creation. The framework of the project provided the opportunity for the authors to reflect on issues of remote digital collaboration and the palimpsest nature of a work revealed in varying stages of evolution through a novel mode of presentation. This paper discusses the mode of creation by situating it within narratives of composition and technology

    Breaking together: a freedom-loving response to collapse

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    The collapse of modern societies has already begun. That is the conclusion of two years of research by the interdisciplinary team behind the book 'Breaking Together'. How did it come to this? Because monetary systems caused us to harm each other and nature to such an extent it broke the foundations of our societies. So what can we do? This book describes people allowing the full pain of our predicament to liberate them into living more courageously and creatively. They demonstrate we can be breaking together, not apart, in this era of collapse. Professor Jem Bendell argues that reclaiming our freedoms is essential to soften the fall and regenerate the natural world. Escaping the efforts of panicking elites, we can advance an ecolibertarian agenda for both politics and practical action in a broken world. Endorsing the text, the founder of Schumacher College, Satish Kumar, remarked: “this is a prophetic book.

    Exploring Animal Behavior Through Sound: Volume 1

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    This open-access book empowers its readers to explore the acoustic world of animals. By listening to the sounds of nature, we can study animal behavior, distribution, and demographics; their habitat characteristics and needs; and the effects of noise. Sound recording is an efficient and affordable tool, independent of daylight and weather; and recorders may be left in place for many months at a time, continuously collecting data on animals and their environment. This book builds the skills and knowledge necessary to collect and interpret acoustic data from terrestrial and marine environments. Beginning with a history of sound recording, the chapters provide an overview of off-the-shelf recording equipment and analysis tools (including automated signal detectors and statistical methods); audiometric methods; acoustic terminology, quantities, and units; sound propagation in air and under water; soundscapes of terrestrial and marine habitats; animal acoustic and vibrational communication; echolocation; and the effects of noise. This book will be useful to students and researchers of animal ecology who wish to add acoustics to their toolbox, as well as to environmental managers in industry and government

    A Phenomenological approach to media art environments: The Immersive art experience and the Finnish art scene

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    This research focuses on immersive art, defined as a multimedia experience where visitors interact with artwork whilst immersed in a range of sensory experiences. In this dissertation, I investigate the immersive art experience from the perspective of art history, social theory, and media studies situated within a phenomenological theoretical framework. I present a comparative analysis of forms of immersive spatiality, including projected moving-image art, spatial environments, participatory installations, video art installations and interactive environments in the international art scene. One of my objectives is to emphasise the role of video art in the development of interactive and immersive art environments. The growing importance of spectators for giving meaning to the artwork allows immersivity to be analysed in relation to the notions of spectacle and spectatorship. I connect disciplines, practices and concepts by adopting principles from Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological writings. Spatiality and motility are pivotal points in immersive experiences. Immersive art, as an embodied mutual experience, materialises the phenomenological concepts of spectatorship, corporeality, motility, porosity, chiasm, and encounter. I have selected a group of relevant Finnish artists from different generations to characterise the development of media art and, particularly, immersive media art in an international context. The group includes Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Lauri Astala, Laura Beloff, Hanna Haaslahti, Tuomas A. Laitinen, Erkka Nissinen, and Marjatta Oja. I examine the historical dissemination of phenomenology in Finland and a renewed interest in the 1990s which coincided with the spatialisation of video art and the emergence of immersivity. I also investigate the opening of Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art and its impact on Finnish culture, and the recent Amos Rex Museum, specifically built for immersive exhibitions. Regarding the unstable nature of media art, I analyse the changes in displaying art collections and exhibitions, the new commitments of art museums and the innovative directions taken by media conservators. My examination of immersive art, with its performativity and transience, reveals environmentally friendly and sustainable aspects.Fenomenologinen tulokulma mediataideympĂ€ristöihin. Immersiivinen taidekokemus ja Suomen taidekenttĂ€ TĂ€mĂ€ tutkimus kĂ€sittelee immersiivistĂ€ taidetta multimediaalisena kokemuksena. Immersiossa kĂ€vijĂ€t ovat erilaisten aistimellisten kokemusten ympĂ€röiminĂ€ vuorovaikutuksessa taiteen kanssa. Tutkin vĂ€itöskirjassani immersiivistĂ€ taidekokemusta fenomenologisessa teoriakehyksessĂ€ taidehistorian, yhteiskuntateorian ja mediatutkimuksen nĂ€kökulmasta. EsitĂ€n vertailevan analyysin immersiivisistĂ€ tilallisuuden muodoista, joihin sisĂ€llytĂ€n liikkuvan kuvan projisoinnit, tilateokset, osallistavat installaatiot, videoinstallaatiot ja interaktiiviset ympĂ€ristöt kansainvĂ€lisen taidekentĂ€n ilmiöinĂ€. YhtenĂ€ pyrkimyksenĂ€ni on painottaa videotaiteen merkitystĂ€ interaktiivisen ja immersiivisen taiteen kehityksessĂ€. Katsojien kasvava rooli taideteoksen merkityksen muodostuksessa tarjoaa perustan immersion analyysille nimenomaan spektaakkelin ja katsojuuden viitekehyksessĂ€. YhdistĂ€n eri tieteenaloja, kĂ€ytĂ€ntöjĂ€ ja kĂ€sitteitĂ€ toisiinsa Maurice Merleau-Pontyn fenomenologisten kirjoitusten avulla. Tilallisuus ja liike ovat immersiivisten kokemusten ytimessĂ€. Jaettuna ruumiillisena kokemuksena immersiivinen taide ilmentÀÀ materiaalisesti fenomenologisia katsojuuden, ruumiillisuuden, liikkeessĂ€ olemisen, huokoisuuden, kiasman ja kohtaamisen kĂ€sitteitĂ€. Olen valinnut joukon eri sukupolvia edustavia suomalaistaiteilijoita hahmot-taakseni mediataiteen ja erityisesti immersiivisen mediataiteen kansainvĂ€lisiĂ€ kehityskulkuja. Heihin lukeutuvat Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Lauri Astala, Laura Beloff, Hanna Haaslahti, Tuomas A. Laitinen, Erkka Nissinen ja Marjatta Oja. KĂ€sittelen fenomenologian saapumista Suomeen sekĂ€ siihen 1990-luvulla videotaiteen tilallistumisen ja immersion esiin nousun yhteydessĂ€ uudelleen virinnyttĂ€ mielenkiintoa. Tarkastelen myös Nykytaiteen museo Kiasman perustamista ja sen vaikutusta suomalaiseen kulttuuriin, samoin kuin vastikÀÀn avattua Amos Rex -taidemuseota, joka on rakennettu erityisesti immersiivisiĂ€ nĂ€yttelyitĂ€ silmĂ€llĂ€ pitĂ€en. Analysoin muutoksia taidekokoelmien ja nĂ€yttelyiden esillepanossa, taidemuseoiden uudenlaisia sitoumuksia ja mediataiteen kuratoinnin uutta luovia suuntia suhteessa mediataiteen nopeasti muuttuvaan luonteeseen. Painottamalla performatiivisuutta ja hetkellisyyttĂ€ nostan immersiivisen taiteen analyysissani nĂ€kyville sen ympĂ€ristöystĂ€vĂ€llisiĂ€ ja kestĂ€viĂ€ ulottuvuuksia

    The Fifteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting

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    The three volumes of the proceedings of MG15 give a broad view of all aspects of gravitational physics and astrophysics, from mathematical issues to recent observations and experiments. The scientific program of the meeting included 40 morning plenary talks over 6 days, 5 evening popular talks and nearly 100 parallel sessions on 71 topics spread over 4 afternoons. These proceedings are a representative sample of the very many oral and poster presentations made at the meeting.Part A contains plenary and review articles and the contributions from some parallel sessions, while Parts B and C consist of those from the remaining parallel sessions. The contents range from the mathematical foundations of classical and quantum gravitational theories including recent developments in string theory, to precision tests of general relativity including progress towards the detection of gravitational waves, and from supernova cosmology to relativistic astrophysics, including topics such as gamma ray bursts, black hole physics both in our galaxy and in active galactic nuclei in other galaxies, and neutron star, pulsar and white dwarf astrophysics. Parallel sessions touch on dark matter, neutrinos, X-ray sources, astrophysical black holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs, binary systems, radiative transfer, accretion disks, quasars, gamma ray bursts, supernovas, alternative gravitational theories, perturbations of collapsed objects, analog models, black hole thermodynamics, numerical relativity, gravitational lensing, large scale structure, observational cosmology, early universe models and cosmic microwave background anisotropies, inhomogeneous cosmology, inflation, global structure, singularities, chaos, Einstein-Maxwell systems, wormholes, exact solutions of Einstein's equations, gravitational waves, gravitational wave detectors and data analysis, precision gravitational measurements, quantum gravity and loop quantum gravity, quantum cosmology, strings and branes, self-gravitating systems, gamma ray astronomy, cosmic rays and the history of general relativity
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