Automation Potential and Artificial Intelligence

This Fact Sheet highlights the automation potential in the Mountain West states (Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado) and its metropolitan statistical areas using the findings of Automation and Artificial Intelligence: How machines are affecting people and places, a report by the Brookings Institution

Economic Growth in Mountain West Metropolitan Areas

This Fact Sheet highlights trends in America’s economic progress, demonstrating how four metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the Mountain West region (Salt Lake City, Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, and Denver-Aurora-Lakewood) fared from 2016 to 2017 and from 2007 to 2017 compared to the national economy and the 100 largest metropolitan economies

Stay or go? Young people’s agency and mobility in and out of small towns

This doctoral thesis examines young people’s place attachments in two small Victorian towns. This qualitative ethnographic study uses auto-driven photo-elicitation to understand young people’s sense of place and futures in their home towns of Castlemaine and Maryborough. These case study towns are of a similar size, geography and heritage fabric. However, they are home to starkly different social indicators and economic policy contexts. The study seeks to understand how the cultural features of small towns affect young people’s place attachment and also how place relationships might subsequently affect young people’s sense of futures through their desired and intended locations and aspirations. To achieve this, the thesis explores young people’s social constructions of place. The photoelicitation method enables close attention to be paid to young people’s engagement with their home towns. This thesis argues that agency or lack of agency is a significant factor in strengthening or diminishing young people’s place attachments. Previous research suggests that one result of place attachment is that people will seek to remain being in a place. For young people in this study there appears to be an inverse relationship. Young people who had a broad and holistic sense of place engagement and attachment also had a broad sense of future possibilities and thus, intended to leave their home towns in pursuit of personal growth and education. Whereas young people who had a more limited sense of attachment or engagement had a narrower sense of future possibilities and were less likely to desire to leave their home town. The study contributes to knowledge about the ways in which place engagement can affect young people’s social and physical mobility.Doctor of Philosoph

The Urban Heat Island Effect in Nevada

This fact sheet explores the temperature difference between Nevada cities and their undeveloped surrounding areas using reports by the Urban Land Institute, Climate Central, National Public Radio (NPR), and various governmental organizations. We investigate what “urban heat islands” are, their effects, the correlation between heat and income, and factors that contribute to rising temperatures in Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, and Reno

The Outdoor Recreation Economy in the Mountain West

This fact sheet provides select data from the State Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account (ORSA) at the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) to highlight the outdoor recreation economy in the Mountain West region, including Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado

Nuclear Fine-Tuning and the llusion of Teleology

Recent existential-risk thinkers have noted that the analysis of the fine-tuning argument for God’s existence, and the analysis of certain forms of existential risk, employ similar types of reasoning. This paper argues that insofar as the “many worlds objection” undermines the inference to God’s existence from universal fine tuning, then a similar many worlds objection undermines the inference that historic risk of global nuclear catastrophe has been low from the lack of such a catastrophe having occurred in our world. A version of the fine-tuning argument applied to nuclear risk, The Nuclear Fine-Tuning Argument, utilizes the set of nuclear close calls to show that 1) conventional explanations fail to adequately explain how we have survived thus far and 2) the existence of many worlds provides an adequate explanation. This is because, if there are many worlds, observers are disproportionately more likely to reflect upon a world that hasn’t had a global nuclear catastrophe than upon one that has had a global nuclear catastrophe. This selection bias results from the catastrophic nature of such an event. This argument extends generally to all global catastrophic risks that both A) have been historic threats and B) would result in a significantly lower global population

A Clear and Present Danger: Portrayals of Destruction in Modern American Cinema before and after the September 11 Attacks

The attacks on September 11, 2001 were a devastating and shocking event that was observed on live television throughout the world. This event was traumatic for those that watched it on television, knew about it, and saw it in person in New York City and Washington D.C. The impacts on the American government have been profound, with emphasis placed on security, aggressiveness, war, and surveillance. These changes occurred in the United States following a studied phenomenon called cultural trauma, where a society reacts as if it were a person traumatized by an event. This can have a significant effect on both a culture’s development and the media it produces. By examining blockbuster films produced and released before and after the September 11 attacks, one can compare them and find the differences between them. These post-9/11 films show that American society is more fascinated with the new reality of major destruction in urban centers, the possibility of imminent danger to the individual from foreign threats, and the reality of a new warlike environment within their cities. All of these effects are reflected by the media that Americans watch, and is most reflected in large blockbuster films due to their huge production costs and film crews who create spectacles to be watched by the largest audience possible. This psychological view of trauma is important in the context of history because it allows the examination of societal trauma as the world enters the twenty-first century

Foot Traffic & Walkable Urbanism

This fact sheet highlights the performance and expansion of WalkUPs (regionally significant, walkable areas) with a focus on Denver, Los Angeles, Orlando, Phoenix, and Las Vegas as detailed in Foot Traffic Ahead: Ranking Walkable Urbanism in America’s Largest Metros, a report by George Washington University

Literature Search for Extraction and Characterization of Fragrant Compounds from Ten Flowering Plants

This capstone literature project conducted a literature search on the extraction of essential oils from the leaves of ten different flowering plants using steam distillation and/or solvent extraction methods. Additionally, the project focused on characterizing and identifying the fragrant compounds present in the essential oils of these ten plants. By conducting a comprehensive literature search, this project provides a summary of the methods employed for extraction and the composition of fragrant compounds in each essential oil. A diverse range of fragrant compounds were found in various plants and flowers, including major and minor compounds such as alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, terpenes, and esters. The plants of interest in this capstone project focused on included Oriental Lily, Tuberose, Neroli, Ylang-Ylang, Gardenia, Catalpa tree, Locust flower, Eucalyptus, Viburnum, and Wisteria Vine