Social Equity and COVID-19: The Case of African Americans

Emerging statistics demonstrate that COVID-19 disproportionately affects African Americans. The effects of COVID-19 for this population are inextricably linked to areas of systemic oppression and disenfranchisement, which are further exacerbated by COVID-19: (1) healthcare inequality; (2) segregation, overall health, and food insecurity; (3) underrepresentation in government and the medical profession; and (4) inequalities in participatory democracy and public engagement. Following a discussion of these issues, this article shares early and preliminary lessons and strategies on how public administration scholars and practitioners can lead in crafting equitable responses to this global pandemic to uplift the African American community

Studies of Tiros and Nimbus radiometric observations Final report

Data analyses of Tiros and Nimbus radiometric observation

AOIPS water resources data management system

A geocoded data management system applicable for hydrological applications was designed to demonstrate the utility of the Atmospheric and Oceanographic Information Processing System (AOIPS) for hydrological applications. Within that context, the geocoded hydrology data management system was designed to take advantage of the interactive capability of the AOIPS hardware. Portions of the Water Resource Data Management System which best demonstrate the interactive nature of the hydrology data management system were implemented on the AOIPS. A hydrological case study was prepared using all data supplied for the Bear River watershed located in northwest Utah, southeast Idaho, and western Wyoming

Meteorological interpretation of Nimbus High Resolution Infrared /HRIR/ data

Nimbus satellite high resolution infrared photographic data analysi

Management, processing and dissemination of sensory data for the Earth Resource Technology Satellite

Data center for management, processing, and dissemination of photographic products generated by ERT

Polymers near Metal Surfaces: Selective Adsorption and Global Conformations

We study the properties of a polycarbonate melt near a nickel surface as a model system for the interaction of polymers with metal surfaces by employing a multiscale modeling approach. For bulk properties a suitably coarse grained bead spring model is simulated by molecular dynamics (MD) methods with model parameters directly derived from quantum chemical calculations. The surface interactions are parameterized and incorporated by extensive quantum mechanical density functional calculations using the Car-Parrinello method. We find strong chemisorption of chain ends, resulting in significant modifications of the melt composition when compared to an inert wall.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures (2 color), 1 tabl

3D geological models and their hydrogeological applications : supporting urban development : a case study in Glasgow-Clyde, UK

Urban planners and developers in some parts of the United Kingdom can now access geodata in an easy-to-retrieve and understandable format. 3D attributed geological framework models and associated GIS outputs, developed by the British Geological Survey (BGS), provide a predictive tool for planning site investigations for some of the UK's largest regeneration projects in the Thames and Clyde River catchments. Using the 3D models, planners can get a 3D preview of properties of the subsurface using virtual cross-section and borehole tools in visualisation software, allowing critical decisions to be made before any expensive site investigation takes place, and potentially saving time and money. 3D models can integrate artificial and superficial deposits and bedrock geology, and can be used for recognition of major resources (such as water, thermal and sand and gravel), for example in buried valleys, groundwater modelling and assessing impacts of underground mining. A preliminary groundwater recharge and flow model for a pilot area in Glasgow has been developed using the 3D geological models as a framework. This paper focuses on the River Clyde and the Glasgow conurbation, and the BGS's Clyde Urban Super-Project (CUSP) in particular, which supports major regeneration projects in and around the City of Glasgow in the West of Scotland

The Sacramental Nature of Community

This essay will focus on ways the ELSJ Core Curriculum requirement and TNI enact the Jesuit way of proceeding to promote dialogue and critical engagement with underserved communities in order to contribute to the common good. Particularly important in these community-engagement practices is attention to the distinction Jewish theologian Martin Buber draws between the subject-object knowing, I – It relationships, characteristic of traditional university learning, and I -Thou relationships possible through “genuine meeting,” “genuine dialogue,” leading to wholeness and “real living,” “actual life.”12 Buber’s description of I - Thou encounters is reminiscent of the relational encounters with God outlined in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Both Buber and Ignatius value “so-called ‘objective knowledge.’” In Philosophical Interrogations Buber specifies, “I have often indicated how much I prize science, so-called ‘objective knowledge.’ Without it there is no orientation in the world of ‘things’ or of ‘phenomena,’ hence no orienting connection with the space-time sphere in which we have to pass our individualized life on earth.”13 However, without I-Thou relationships, according to Buber’s thinking, individuals are limited to being “an object among objects.”14 Bryan Stevenson, Founder and Executive Director of Equal Justice Initiative, advocates a similar idea when he emphasizes theimportance of “proximity,” “getting close to people and the actual problem.”15 We propose that the principles of community-engaged teaching and scholarship, project-based learning, and participatory action research16 espoused by ELSJ courses and TNI promote the common good and animate the mission of the University in ways that can be understood as a sacrament of community, closely related to the sacrament of marriage. Community-based engagement goes beyond supporting the Catholic identity of many of our students and community partner organizations to support the formation of responsible citizens who will contribute to the common good.1

Representation through Lived Experience: Expanding Representative Bureaucracy Theory

This study draws on the insights of managers in the behavioral health treatment system to explore the value of persons who bring lived experience to their organizational positions. Within these organizations, persons with relevant lived experience occupy various nonclinical and clinical positions. When facilities incorporate workers with lived experience, managers observe increased levels of trust between clients and service providers, an enhanced client-centered perspective among service providers, and higher quality in the services provided. This study may guide managers in considering how (or whether) human service organizations might institutionalize lived experience as a mechanism to help create a representative bureaucracy

"Kludge" gravitational waveforms for a test-body orbiting a Kerr black hole

One of the most exciting potential sources of gravitational waves for low-frequency, space-based gravitational wave (GW) detectors such as the proposed Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is the inspiral of compact objects into massive black holes in the centers of galaxies. The detection of waves from such "extreme mass ratio inspiral" systems (EMRIs) and extraction of information from those waves require template waveforms. The systems' extreme mass ratio means that their waveforms can be determined accurately using black hole perturbation theory. Such calculations are computationally very expensive. There is a pressing need for families of approximate waveforms that may be generated cheaply and quickly but which still capture the main features of true waveforms. In this paper, we introduce a family of such "kludge" waveforms and describe ways to generate them. We assess performance of the introduced approximations by comparing "kludge" waveforms to accurate waveforms obtained by solving the Teukolsky equation in the adiabatic limit (neglecting GW backreaction). We find that the kludge waveforms do extremely well at approximating the true gravitational waveform, having overlaps with the Teukolsky waveforms of 95% or higher over most of the parameter space for which comparisons can currently be made. Indeed, we find these kludges to be of such high quality (despite their ease of calculation) that it is possible they may play some role in the final search of LISA data for EMRIs.Comment: 29 pages, 11 figures, requires subeqnarray; v2 contains minor changes for consistency with published versio