Unmanned Systems Sentinel / 3 June 2016

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

The bardic utterance in situation comedy theme songs, 1960-2000

The purpose of this study is to examine the function of the bard in situation comedy theme songs. This study calls upon Fiske and Hartley\u27s concept of television as a cultural bard, a singer and teller of stories that create and conserve community. The bard reaffirms the culture\u27s identity while delivering social and political messages relevant to the culture at specific times throughout history. This study also draws upon social-historical and cultural perspectives, and a selective semiotic analysis to investigate the visual, vocal, and musical themes from four decades of television sitcoms. The shows and themes from the 1960s include The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-71), The Andy Griffith Show (1960-68), Gomer Pyle, USMC (1964-70), Bewitched (1964-72), and That Girl (1966-71). Those from the 1970s include All in the Family (1971-79), The Jeffersons (1975-85), Maude (1972-78), The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-77), M*A*S*H (1972-83), and Three\u27s Company (1977-84). Those from the 1980s include The Cosby Show (1984-92), Cheers (1982-93), The Wonder Years (1988-93), The Golden Girls (1985-92), and It\u27s Garry Shandling\u27s Show (1988-90). Lastly, the shows and themes from the 1990s include Roseanne (1988-97), Married. . .With Children (1987-97), The Simpsons (1989-), Home Improvement (1991-99), Dharma and Greg (1997-2000), Everybody Loves Raymond (1996-), Frasier (1993-), and The Drew Carey Show (1995-). The results of the analysis reveal that the themes address relevant cultural issues such as race relations, the role of the domestic woman, the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, class conflict, and the construction of reality. To date, very little scholarly attention has been paid to the area of television theme songs. Given that television is a central part of popular culture, and that sitcoms and theme songs comprise a significant amount of television air time, it is important to understand their relationship to culture and culture making. This study concludes that theme songs are concise bardic utterances that offer brief yet powerful rhetorical statements. Through the performance of these texts, the bard speaks to the prevailing values of the culture, using familiar means to uphold a sense of community and offer the audience a reinforcing idea of themselves

Integrated design for urban mobility

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (p. 402-412).This thesis demonstrates a rethinking of urban mobility through ecological design. Human mobility and ecological accountability are inextricably linked in city design; our current world ecological crisis underscores this fundamental connection. Through original design exploration ranging in scale from automobiles to tall building clusters, this work proffers a critical vision towards green urbanism. These conceptions challenge the everyday practices of city planning and design by offering an interdisciplinary framework for design production. The work concludes with the necessity for a new design field entitled "Ecotransology". Ecotransology is still in the nascent stages. It has the potential to become a far-reaching awareness that bonds the disciplines of road ecology, urban design, transportation planning, automotive engineering, and energy consultation. This work establishes the theoretical foundations for Ecotransology in four parts. Part one, Ideation, is a survey of visions on cities illustrating original concepts such as "Gentle Congestion", "Transport User Interface (TUI) Valley Section" and "Netwheels". Part two, Eco, illustrates the principles of ecological design in projects such as "MATscape" and "Fab Tree Hab".(cont.) Part three, Trans, conveys the principles of smart mobility in "Soft Cars" and "Omni-Flocking" vehicles. Part four, Ecotrans, synthesizes these approaches in a series of designs for circulation in bridged tall building clusters such as "PeristalCity". The work describes a burgeoning field, Ecotransology, which promotes ecological transitions within urban contexts. By linking tall building clusters and cars, unique green design proposals for urbanization were produced, which promote a new role in defining the ciphers of future design thought.by Mitchell Whitney Joachim.Ph.D

NASA Tech Briefs, May 1994

Topics covered include: Robotics/Automation; Electronic Components and Circuits; Electronic Systems; Physical Sciences; Materials; Computer Programs; Mechanics; Machinery/Automation; Manufacturing/Fabrication; Mathematics and Information Sciences; Life Sciences; Books and Reports

Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS 1994), volume 1

The AIAA/NASA Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS '94) was originally proposed because of the strong belief that America's problems of global economic competitiveness and job creation and preservation can partly be solved by the use of intelligent robotics, which are also required for human space exploration missions. Individual sessions addressed nuclear industry, agile manufacturing, security/building monitoring, on-orbit applications, vision and sensing technologies, situated control and low-level control, robotic systems architecture, environmental restoration and waste management, robotic remanufacturing, and healthcare applications

Out of Place: Possibility and Pollution at a Transnational Landfill.

This dissertation is an exploration of the political, economic, ecological, and semiotic dimensions of waste management in Northern America, more specifically, of waste circulation and landfilling in the Great Lakes area. It is primarily based on research conducted in and around a large landfill in the rural periphery of Detroit – which once accepted all of Toronto’s waste – and the different neighborhoods and livelihoods entangled with it. Examining landfills and the people and places associated with them, it is argued, provides a new way of understanding societies that are dependent upon mass waste disposal. I demonstrate how the prevailing Northern American waste regime creates strange new possibilities for wasted places and people even as it serves as a source of social and material pollution. All of the chapters share in common a focus on landfilling as a waste disposal method that pollutes environments, bodies, livelihoods, towns, and states, while at the same time generating new ecological relations, economic opportunities, and political movements. Some of the people discussed in my dissertation explore new opportunities through employment as a waste worker at the landfill or by scavenging there, while others seek to control or combat the waste site and see it as the product of injustice and neglect. In each case, waste seems to adhere to people and places, making them “dirty” but also inspiring dreams of future wealth, success, and power.Ph.D.AnthropologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60785/1/renoj_1.pd

Robotics and the Future of International Asymmetric Warfare

In the post-Cold War world, the world's most powerful states have cooperated or avoided conflict with each other, easily defeated smaller state governments, engaged in protracted conflicts against insurgencies and resistance networks, and lost civilians to terrorist attacks. This dissertation explores various explanations for this pattern, proposing that some non-state networks adapt to major international transitions more quickly than bureaucratic states. Networks have taken advantage of the information technology revolution to enhance their capabilities, but states have begun to adjust, producing robotic systems with the potential to grant them an advantage in asymmetric warfare