Uberising the Urban. Labour, Infrastructure and Big Data in the Actually Existing Smart City of Toronto

This thesis explores how Uber reformats the urban and vice versa. Rather than taking for granted Uber’s success in remoulding the emerging ‘smart city’ in its own image, Uberising the Urban pays close attention to the contradictory, variegated and far from frictionless encounters between Uberisation and urbanisation. The thesis is particularly interested in those neuralgic points of contact where the abstract logics of Uber’s business model – its vectors of data extraction, labour exploitation and platform expansion – hit the urban ground of existing social and physical geographies. The Uberisation of the urban – such is this thesis’s main argument – does not take place in a material and social void; it unfolds in, with and against the dense social and material thickness of existing urban space. This argument is deepened in three case studies. Zooming in from different angles, these case studies show how the vectors of Uberisation have come up against the multiscalar and variously uneven urban grounds of the actually existing smart city of Toronto. While the first case study provides a detailed discussion of the conflictive processes leading up to the legalisation of Uber in Toronto and the parallel ‘regulated deregulation’ of the city’s taxi-cum-ridehail market, the second case study tackles the next subsequent ‘stage’ of Uberisation in Toronto: the proliferation of various public-private ridehail partnerships (PPRPs) between Uber and Lyft on the one hand and local and regional transit agencies in the GTA on the other. The third case study is concerned with Uber’s self-driving car programme and, in particular, the invasive practices of data extraction that Uber has implemented in Toronto – turning the city into a real-life urban data reservoir for the development of its self-driving software. A conclusion, shedding light on a potential reconfiguration of Uber towards more socially emancipatory ends, rounds out the dissertation

"It's all country boys:" rural young male perceptions of risk and protective factors for dating violence and technology-based interventions as an acceptable response

In 2019, one in eight US teens reported experiencing Teen Dating Violence (TDV) as physical, psychological, sexual, and online abuse. Studies show rural youth report up to twice the physical violence rates of urban youth but remain grossly undersampled and understudied, particularly rural young males. The Health-e BROs! Study (Better & Healthy Relationship Outcomes) was designed to begin to address this gap. An understudied aspect of dating violence prevention is young people's perception and communication of risks associated with TDV victimization and perpetration. Overall, 14 rural young males participated in three online focus groups, and another 13 completed phone interviews stratified by age - 15-17 (middle adolescents) and 18-24 (emerging adults). In this dissertation, two specific aims were addressed using distinct analytical approaches. First, using an interpretive and dialectical approach grounded in relational dialectics theory (RDT), this study explored TDV risk communication and risk perceptions among rural young males (ages 15-24). Our interpretive analysis identified two main themes of risk and protection dialectics: (1) Dialectics of Social Tensions and (2) Dialectics of Help-Seeking & Help-Giving. Within each main theme, constitutive sub-themes are described as dialectics accompanied by participant quotes. Dialectical tensions and contradictions were used as a heuristic framework. Our second aim investigated: (a) what rural male youth consider useful content, resources, and features in app-based dating violence prevention intervention and (b) unmet needs related to barriers and facilitators for using this type of intervention in rural contexts. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) guided the second aim, and a qualitative descriptive approach was used to analyze this aim. Findings bear implications for advocates and practitioners working with rural youth in planning developmentally and culturally appropriate anti-TDV programs and will yield intervention, policy, and for researchers by providing a broader framework for the development of theory and effective violence prevention practice in low-income, rural contexts.Includes bibliographical reference

Implications of industry 4.0 on financial performance: an empirical study

With this thesis, we explore the relationship between industry 4.0 technologies and financial performance. After presenting the fourth industrial revolution and the analysis of management articles and reviews, we describe the database used. Finally research questions are investigated though t-tests and multiple linear regression model

OCM 2015 - 2nd International Conference on Optical Characterization of Materials: March 18th - 19th, 2015, Karlsruhe, Germany

Each material has its own specific spectral signature independent if it is food, plastics, or minerals. During the conference we will discuss new trends and developments in material characterization. You also will be informed about latest highlights to identify spectral footprints and their realizations in industry

1995 BRAC Commission

Navy Installations - China Lake, CA. Special Facilities and Equipment, Facilities/Equipment Capabilities Form. Box 176, L-108