Evaluation of Mechanical and Control Systems Serving the Art Museums at Colonial Williamsburg

This NEH planning grant would be used to evaluate mechanical and control systems serving the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, with the goals of a) developing a plan to replace and upgrade systems and thereby improve reliability, performance and efficiency, and b) creating and sustaining a safer environment for the Colonial Williamsburg collections. Targeted areas include evaluation of: 1) the condition and performance of mechanical equipment, especially the 1984 air handlers and heating plant; 2) the condition and performance of the chiller plant, including assessment of plate heat exchanger fouling of modular chillers used with open tower condensing loop; 3) optimum control strategies and BAS programming to maintain museum environmental conditions with minimal energy use; 4) existing BAS operations and maintenance support; 5) lighting upgrade options to reduce energy usage and light exposure to the collections

An evaluation of wetland no net loss and mitigation under section 404 of the Clean Water Act on the Santa Rosa Plain, Sonoma County, California.

The Santa Rosa Plain (Plain), Sonoma County, California, has lost 85% of its vernal pools, affecting the survival of four threatened and endangered species. The ability of Section 404 of the Clean Water Act to achieve the goal of no net loss is a particular importance in areas, such as the Plain, where wetland resources have become severely impacted. The objective of the study was to determine if a no net loss of wetland area occurred on the Plain, to evaluate the implementation of the Santa Rosa Plain programmatic permit, and to examine trends associated with compensatory medication. Fifty-two Section 404 permits affecting seasonal wetlands on the Santa Rosa Plain between July 17th, 1998 and December 31st, 2004 were examined. The no net loss based on required mitigation was determined and adjusted for loss due to mitigation failure and loss resulting from enhancement. The medication acreage That could be verified was determined in the acreage appended to the programmatic permit was totaled. The frequency of the type of mitigation (on-site, off-site, bank) selected was evaluated by type of proponent (public or private). The location of impacts and mitigation sites were evaluated to assess the effects of geographic displacement. Required mitigation resulted in a net gain of 3.512 acres; however, the combined effects of failure in enhancement resulted in a net loss of 0.504 acre. Only 53% of the mitigation was verified. In most cases the programmatic permit was properly applied and maximum acreage limits had not been exceeded. Mitigation banking was the most frequently used type of mitigation; however, banks were found to result in greater geographic displacement. A majority of the impacts were due to private developers occurred within urban boundaries, while a majority of the mitigation sites were located outside of urban areas. Mitigation banks were found to play an important role in mitigation on the Plain

Assessment of the effectiveness of treatment methods on Eucalyptus grandis yielding pencil props

Abstract: Supporting of underground hanging-walls is an important task that ensures a safe working environment and a continuous opening in underground mining operations. Underground stope support systems such as yielding pencil props, packs, tendons and backfill are used to stabilise hanging-walls in excavations to reduce or eliminate falls of ground and rock-bursts. The brushingoff of the pod end of an installed E. grandis pencil prop is the initial yielding part of the support unit under load. This failure mechanism allows inelastic hanging-wall to converge or vertically dilate while the support unit maintains contact with the rock unit without losing its support integrity (i.e. it does not buckle). Higher Moisture Content (MC) in yielding pencil props allows the props to fail according to the expected mechanism. Tonnes of timber products are wasted annually due to severe cracking / checking during the storage phase. Physical deterioration in a form of cracks of more than 10 mm wide and longer than 1/3 of the longitudinal dimension of the yielding pencil prop are criteria used by timber units’ suppliers to reject yielding pencil props...M.Ing. (Engineering Management

Women without a Voice: The Paradox of Silence in the Works of Sandra Cisneros, Shashi Deshpande and Azar Nafisi

Women of every culture face a similar problem: loss of voice. Their lives are permeated with silence. Whether their silence results from a patriarchal society that prohibits women from asserting their identity or from a social expectation of gender roles that confine women to an expressive domain-submissive, nurturing, passive, and domestic-rather than an instrumental role where men are dominant, affective and aggressive-women share the common bond of a debilitating silence. Maria Racine, in her analysis of Janie in Zora Neale Hurston\u27s Their Eyes Were Watching God, reaffirms the pervasiveness of this bond: For women, silence has crossed every racial and cultural boundary (283). Indeed, Elaine Mar, a Chinese-American writer, in her memoir, Paper Daughter, elucidates the implications of silence for women, Like Mother I was learning to disappear. Frequently, I sought refuge with her in the basement room, in the silence of empty spaces. But I was also learning to vanish in full sight of others, retreating into myself when physical flight wasn\u27t possible. My voice withered. Silent desire parched my throat (48). Silence and loss of voice debilitate and stifle women, as they are forced to sublimate their identity in order to survive in their worlds

“To Say Nothing”: Variations on the Theme of Silence in Selected Works by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sandra Cisneros, and María Luisa Bombal

This paper explores the various ways in which Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s La Respuesta, Sandra Cisneros’s “Woman Hollering Creek,” and María Luisa Bombal’s “The Tree” address the theme of silence. It interrogates how the female characters in each of these works are silenced as well as their responses to that oppression. Meaning is subjective, so writing is a safe outlet for the oppressed. These works each identify an oppressor, either a husband or the male dominated church, as well as an oppressed individual, who is the female lead. In La Respuesta, the Catholic church, and specifically “Sor Filotea” tries to silence Sor Juana. She regards silence as a tool because “what it signifies may be understood” in its absence (43). Brígida, from Bombal’s “The Tree” suffers under the oppression of her aged husband, Luis. She uses silence as a weapon and chooses it to rebel against her inability to communicate. Cisneros focuses very specifically on language and the ability to produce sound in “Woman Hollering Creek.” Her female character, Cleófilas, is silenced by her husband’s physical and emotional abuse. She must literally break her silence with a holler in order to overcome his oppression. Each of these women regards silence differently, but in one form or another, each of their female characters manages to break through that silence and out of their oppression

A culture of silence: modes of objectification and the silencing of disabled bodies

Throughout history different practices have attempted to silence the experiences of disabled people. In this paper we explore some of these practices including the medical, familial, and self-subjugating practices English-speaking Canadian polio survivors experienced throughout their lives. We analyze participant’s experiences of silence and silencing through a Foucauldian lens, drawing on the three modes of objectification to explain the institutional and cultural discourses around polio subjects that acted upon and through the polio body to silence it. Participants’ oral history accounts demonstrate how sociocultural and medical practices effectively silenced survivors from speaking about their polio experiences. However, the trope of silence is also uprooted within oral history traditions. We will demonstrate how participants broke their silence and shifted their perspectives on polio and disability, and how this process contributed to their resistance of hegemonic conceptualizations of disability as defective

“To Say Nothing”: Variations on the Theme of Silence in Selected Works by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sandra Cisneros, and María Luisa Bombal

This paper explores the various ways in which Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s La Respuesta, Sandra Cisneros’s “Woman Hollering Creek,” and María Luisa Bombal’s “The Tree” address the theme of silence. It interrogates how the female characters in each of these works are silenced as well as their responses to that oppression. Meaning is subjective, so writing is a safe outlet for the oppressed. These works each identify an oppressor, either a husband or the male dominated church, as well as an oppressed individual, who is the female lead. In La Respuesta, the Catholic church, and specifically “Sor Filotea” tries to silence Sor Juana. She regards silence as a tool because “what it signifies may be understood” in its absence (43). Brígida, from Bombal’s “The Tree” suffers under the oppression of her aged husband, Luis. She uses silence as a weapon and chooses it to rebel against her inability to communicate. Cisneros focuses very specifically on language and the ability to produce sound in “Woman Hollering Creek.” Her female character, Cleófilas, is silenced by her husband’s physical and emotional abuse. She must literally break her silence with a holler in order to overcome his oppression. Each of these women regards silence differently, but in one form or another, each of their female characters manages to break through that silence and out of their oppression