Peak Oil and Transition: The Making of a Documentary Video

Many scientists and academics have raised serious concerns regarding the depletion of fossil fuels—especially the peaking of oil production—and its impact upon society. According to these researchers, oil for transportation and production will soon become expensive and scarce, and known alternative sources of energy will be insufficient to make up the difference within the required time frame. Therefore, world civilization (and the United States in particular) will soon undergo a crisis in energy supply that will have significant impacts on the structure of community life, economic wellbeing, political organization, and individual lifestyles. One response to these threats is to attempt to develop mitigation strategies for communities that involve strong conservation measures and relocalization of crucial necessities like food and energy production. During the past decade, many Sustainability and Transition organizations have been formed by citizen activists to educate their citizens about the challenges of peak oil, and to evolve approaches to overcome them. The primary purpose of this dissertation is, through a documentary video production, to examine the likely impacts of peak oil and to investigate strategies for promoting community resilience, focusing particularly on the emergence of v Sustainability and Transition groups in northern California. The method of the inquiry is participative action research, employing interviews with scholars and community leaders on the subject of peak oil and strategies for community adaptation. The primary components of this documentary are video interviews and supporting footage, with the objectives of explaining the concept of peak oil; demonstrating why alternative technologies may prove insufficient to replace fossil fuels; examining the potential economic, social and psychological impacts of energy shortages; and demonstrating the process of activist organization in pursuit of strategies and tactics to promote community resilience. In particular, this research focuses on representatives of organizations that study the impacts of peak oil, such as the Post Carbon Institute and Post Peak Living; and Transition and Sustainability initiatives in the northern California counties of Marin, Sonoma, and Mendocino

Mathematical backgrounds, skills and operations prerequiste to Sp and CAF positions in civil service,

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1949. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Superintendent evaluation and other influences on the school board and superintendent relationship: Measuring strength of relationship

As schools in the United States resegregate and federal antipoverty programs lapse, the achievement gap widens once again. What can educational leaders do on their own to reverse this trend in the face of increased state and federal mandates, decreasing school funding, and community resistance to change? The purpose of this study was to determine the relative effects of factors (evaluation, conflict, political climate, superintendent influence, teaching & learning style, board training, and overall Strength of Relationship) that influence the board and superintendent relationship and to use these data to suggest strategies to support substantive change. A unique survey questionnaire was developed, tested, and deployed online statewide to all superintendents and board presidents in public school districts in the State of Michigan. Total population was N = 526 school districts, N = 1052 potential respondents. A self-selected sample (n = 1047, 99.5%) responded to the survey. Complete data provided an evenly distributed and representative self-selected sample of the entire state by region and district size from which the researcher could generalize with confidence. A Strength of Relationship (SOR) Scale was developed by rating responses to questions in each factor, which were statistically tested against district level indicators (Size of District, socioeconomic status, per pupil expenditure, student achievement, political type, evaluation type). Conflict, disagreement, and student achievement were also statistically tested against district-level indicators. The significant findings of the study were (a) When pluralistic political type board interaction paired with data-driven superintendent evaluation type (as opposed to global or judgment), Strength of Relationship increased approximately two-fold in most cases, levels of conflict were lower and, more important, levels of student achievement were higher; (b) boards that work in a pluralistic manner are 87–93% less likely to report conflict than were other political types (dominated, factional, inert). Conflict centered first on role definition and fulfillment, and second on financial issues; (c) the lower the levels of disagreement between the board and the superintendent were, the higher the student achievement was. This remained the case regardless of district size, per-pupil expenditure, or socioeconomic status; (d) student achievement was shown to be as much as 3-4 times higher in the Pluralistic and Data-driven combination of political type and evaluation method

Multiple minority identities : Queer and Muslim Arab Americans

People who are Queer Muslim Arab Americans have unique experiences, as their multiple identities often clash head-on with cultural expectations of their respective communities. To fully grasp the concept of someone who identifies as such, this thesis explores each minority identity individually, and then examines the interactions of all three identities. The Double Jeopardy and Intersectional Invisibility theories of multiple minority identities are explored in relation to people who are Queer Muslim Arab Americans. Scenarios are outlined in which each theory seems more relevant. Finally, community needs of Queer Muslim Arab Americans are discussed, with a focus on the opportunities that are available to mental health providers and community psychologists to make a positive impact on this multiple minority community

Time-distance helioseismology: Sensitivity of f-mode travel times to flows

Time-distance helioseismology has shown that f-mode travel times contain information about horizontal flows in the Sun. The purpose of this study is to provide a simple interpretation of these travel times. We study the interaction of surface-gravity waves with horizontal flows in an incompressible, plane-parallel solar atmosphere. We show that for uniform flows less than roughly 250 m s$^{-1}$, the travel-time shifts are linear in the flow amplitude. For stronger flows, perturbation theory up to third order is needed to model waveforms. The case of small-amplitude spatially-varying flows is treated using the first-order Born approximation. We derive two-dimensional Fr\'{e}chet kernels that give the sensitivity of travel-time shifts to local flows. We show that the effect of flows on travel times depends on wave damping and on the direction from which the observations are made. The main physical effect is the advection of the waves by the flow rather than the advection of wave sources or the effect of flows on wave damping. We compare the two-dimensional sensitivity kernels with simplified three-dimensional kernels that only account for wave advection and assume a vertical line of sight. We find that the three-dimensional f-mode kernels approximately separate in the horizontal and vertical coordinates, with the horizontal variations given by the simplified two-dimensional kernels. This consistency between quite different models gives us confidence in the usefulness of these kernels for interpreting quiet-Sun observations.Comment: 34 pages, accepted to Astrophysical Journa

Investigation of a Sunspot Complex by Helioseismology

Sunspot regions often form complexes of activity that may live for several solar rotations, and represent a major component of the Sun's magnetic activity. It had been suggested that the close appearance of active regions in space and time might be related to common subsurface roots, or "nests" of activity. EUV images show that the active regions are magnetically connected in the corona, but subsurface connections have not been established. We investigate the subsurface structure and dynamics of a large complex of activity, NOAA 10987-10989, observed during the SOHO/MDI Dynamics run in March-April 2008, which was a part of the Whole Heliospheric Interval (WHI) campaign. The active regions in this complex appeared in a narrow latitudinal range, probably representing a subsurface toroidal flux tube. We use the MDI full-disk Dopplergrams to measure perturbations of travel times of acoustic waves traveling to various depths by using time-distance helioseismology, and obtain sound-speed and flow maps by inversion of the travel times. The subsurface flow maps show an interesting dynamics of decaying active regions with persistent shearing flows, which may be important for driving the flaring and CME activity, observed during the WHI campaign. Our analysis, including the seismic sound-speed inversion results and the distribution of deep-focus travel-time anomalies, gave indications of diverging roots of the magnetic structures, as could be expected from $\Omega$-loop structures. However, no clear connection in the depth range of 0-48 Mm among the three active regions in this complex of activity was detected.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, Proc. IAU Symposium 273, Physics of Sun and Star Spots, Ventura, California 22-26 August 201

Impact of Locally Suppressed Wave sources on helioseismic travel times

Wave travel-time shifts in the vicinity of sunspots are typically interpreted as arising predominantly from magnetic fields, flows, and local changes in sound speed. We show here that the suppression of granulation related wave sources in a sunspot can also contribute significantly to these travel-time shifts, and in some cases, an asymmetry between in and outgoing wave travel times. The tight connection between the physical interpretation of travel times and source-distribution homogeneity is confirmed. Statistically significant travel-time shifts are recovered upon numerically simulating wave propagation in the presence of a localized decrease in source strength. We also demonstrate that these time shifts are relatively sensitive to the modal damping rates; thus we are only able to place bounds on the magnitude of this effect. We see a systematic reduction of 10-15 seconds in $p$-mode mean travel times at short distances ($\sim 6.2$ Mm) that could be misinterpreted as arising from a shallow (thickness of 1.5 Mm) increase ($\sim$ 4%) in the sound speed. At larger travel distances ($\sim 24$ Mm) a 6-13 s difference between the ingoing and outgoing wave travel times is observed; this could mistakenly be interpreted as being caused by flows.Comment: Revised version. Submitted to Ap