The Surveillance Gap: The Harms of Extreme Privacy and Data Marginalization

We live in an age of unprecedented surveillance, enhanced by modern technology, prompting some to suggest that privacy is dead. Previous scholarship suggests that no subset of the population feels this phenomenon more than marginalized communities. Those who rely on public benefits, for example, must turn over personal information and submit to government surveillance far more routinely than wealthier citizens who enjoy greater opportunity to protect their privacy and the ready funds to secure it. This article illuminates the other end of the spectrum, arguing that many individuals who may value government and nonprofit services and legal protections fail to enjoy these benefits because they reside in a “surveillance gap.” These people include undocumented immigrants, day laborers, homeless persons, and people with felony conviction histories suffering collateral consequences of their convictions. Members of these groups often remain outside of the mainstream data flows and institutional attachments necessary to flourish in American society. The harms that surveillance gap residents experience can be severe, such as physical and mental health injuries and lack of economic stability, as well as data marginalization and resulting invisibility to policymakers. In short, having too much privacy can be as injurious as having too little. The sources of the surveillance gap range from attempts to contain and control marginalized groups to data silos to economic exploitation. This article explores the boundaries of the surveillance gap, evaluates how this emerging concept fits within existing privacy paradigms and theoretical frameworks, and suggests possible solutions to enhance the autonomy and dignity of marginalized people within the surveillance gap

Scale closure in upper ocean optical properties : from single particles to ocean color

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2002Predictions of chlorophyll concentration from satellite ocean color are an indicator of phytoplankton primary productivity, with implications for foodweb structure, fisheries, and the global carbon cycle. Current models describing the relationship between optical properties and chlorophyll do not account for much of the optical variability observed in natural waters, because of the presence of seawater constituents that do not covary with phytoplankton pigment concentration. In an attempt to better understand variability in these models, the contributions of seawater constituents to ocean optical properties were investigated. A combination of Mie theory and flow cytometry was used to determine the diameter, complex refractive index (n+n'i), and optical cross-sections of individual particles, based on a method developed in the laboratory using phytoplankton cultures. Individual particle measurements were used to interpret variability in concurrently measured bulk optical properties in New England continental shelf waters in two seasons. The summed contribution to scattering of individual particles in the size range of 0.1-50 μm accounted for approximately the entire scattering coefficient measured independently using bulk methods. In surface waters in both seasons, the large diameters and n' of eukaryotic phytoplankton caused them to be the main particle contributors to both absorption and scattering. Minerals were the main contributor to backscattering, bb, in the spring, whereas in the summer both minerals and detritus contributed to bb. Synechococcus and heterotrophic bacteria were less important optically, contributing ≤11% each to attenuation in either season. The role of seawater constituents in determining remote sensing reflectance, Rrs, was determined using radiative transfer theory. Seasonal differences in the spectral shape of Rrs were contributed to approximately equally by eukaryotic phytoplankton absorption, dissolved absorption, and non-phytoplankton bb. A higher inverse wavelength dependence of non-phytoplankton bb in the summer was caused by the contribution of small detritus, in contrast to larger minerals in the spring. Measurements of bb and Rrs were compared to values from bio-optical models based on chlorophyll concentration. Differences in measured and modeled bb and Rrs were caused by higher dissolved absorption and higher backscattering efficiencies and scattering by non-phytoplankton than were assumed by the model.This work has been supported in par by: a NASA Earth System Science Fellowship to R. Green, ONR grants NOOOI4-95-1-0333 and NOOOI4-96-1-0965 to H. Sosik and R. Olson, and the Education Office

Women, families and work. How to help L&Q’s women residents into work and tackle the barriers they face. Executive Summary

Women’s rates of employment are lower than men’s. Housing association residents' rates of employment are lower than those in other tenures. Thus women housing association tenants have high rates of out-of-work benefit claims and high rates of poverty. It is known that women housing association residents with children face constraints to employment, ranging from their own individual circumstances to shortages of services and problems with the jobs available. In this context, housing associations, including L&Q, have increasingly become involved in providing information, support and training to help their residents both to get work and also to progress in it. The research aimed to better understand the constraints felt by L&Q’s women residents with children making the transition to work, and the supports that could them make and sustain the transition. It also aimed to identify a range of practical ways in which L&Q could support women residents to overcome barriers to work. It complements ‘Real London Lives’, another research project carried out by L&Q and its 15 partner housing associations which form the G15 group in London (http://reallondonlives.co.uk

The Chemical and Ionization Conditions in Weak Mg II Absorbers

We present an analysis of the chemical and ionization conditions in a sample of 100 weak Mg II absorbers identified in the VLT/UVES archive of quasar spectra. Using a host of low ionization lines associated with each absorber in this sample, and on the basis of ionization models, we infer that the metallicity in a significant fraction of weak Mg II clouds is constrained to values of solar or higher, if they are sub-Lyman limit systems. Based on the observed constraints, we present a physical picture in which weak Mg II absorbers are predominantly tracing two different astrophysical processes/structures. A significant population of weak Mg II clouds, those in which N(Fe II) is much less than N(Mg II), identified at both low (z ~ 1) and high (z ~ 2) redshift, are potentially tracing gas in the extended halos of galaxies, analogous to the Galactic high velocity clouds. These absorbers might correspond to alpha-enhanced interstellar gas expelled from star-forming galaxies, in correlated supernova events. On the other hand, N(FeII) approximately equal to N(Mg II) clouds, which are prevalent only at lower redshifts (z < 1.5), must be tracing Type Ia enriched gas in small, high metallicity pockets in dwarf galaxies, tidal debris, or other intergalactic structures.Comment: 35 pages (including tables & figures). Accepted for publication in ApJ. A high resolution version of the paper is available at "http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~anand/weakMgII.pdf

Women, families and work : how to help L&Q's women residents into work and tackle the barriers they face

Women’s rates of employment are lower than men’s. Housing association residents' rates of employment are lower than those in other tenures. Thus women housing association tenants have high rates of out-of-work benefit claims and high rates of poverty. It is known that women housing association residents with children face constraints to employment, ranging from their own individual circumstances to shortages of services and problems with the jobs available. In this context, housing associations, including L&Q, have increasingly become involved in providing information, support and training to help their residents both to get work and also to progress in it. The research aimed to better understand the constraints felt by L&Q’s women residents with children making the transition to work, and the supports that could them make and sustain the transition. It also aimed to identify a range of practical ways in which L&Q could support women residents to overcome barriers to work. It complements ‘Real London Lives’, another research project carried out by L&Q and its 15 partner housing associations which form the G15 group in London (http://reallondonlives.co.uk

Women, families and work. How to help L&Q’s women residents into work and tackle the barriers they face. Executive Summary

Women’s rates of employment are lower than men’s. Housing association residents' rates of employment are lower than those in other tenures. Thus women housing association tenants have high rates of out-of-work benefit claims and high rates of poverty. It is known that women housing association residents with children face constraints to employment, ranging from their own individual circumstances to shortages of services and problems with the jobs available. In this context, housing associations, including L&Q, have increasingly become involved in providing information, support and training to help their residents both to get work and also to progress in it. The research aimed to better understand the constraints felt by L&Q’s women residents with children making the transition to work, and the supports that could them make and sustain the transition. It also aimed to identify a range of practical ways in which L&Q could support women residents to overcome barriers to work. It complements ‘Real London Lives’, another research project carried out by L&Q and its 15 partner housing associations which form the G15 group in London (http://reallondonlives.co.uk

International assessment of priority environmental issues for land-based and offshore wind energy development

Non-technical summary. A substantial increase in wind energy deployment worldwide is required to help achieve international targets for decreasing global carbon emissions andlimiting the impacts of climate change. In response to global concerns regarding the environmental effects of wind energy, the International Energy Agency Wind Technical Collaborative Program initiated Task 34 – Working Together to Resolve Environmental Effects of Wind Energy or WREN. As part of WREN, this study performed an international assessment with the global wind energy and environmental community to determine priority environmental issues over the next 5‒10 years and help support collaborative interactions among researchers, developers, regulators, and stakeholders. Technical summary. A systematic assessment was performed using feedback from the international community to identify priority environmental issues for land-based and offshore wind energy development. Given the global nature of wind energy development, feedback was of interest from all countries where such development is underway or planned to help meet United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change targets. The assessment prioritized environmental issues over the next 5–10 years associated with wind energy development and received a total of 294 responses from 28 countries. For land-based wind, the highest-ranked issues included turbine collision risk for volant species (birds and bats), cumulative effects on species and ecosystems, and indirect effects such as avoidance and displacement. For offshore wind, the highest-ranked issues included cumulative effects, turbine collision risk, underwater noise (e.g. marine mammals and fish), and displacement. Emerging considerations for these priorities include potential application to future technologies (e.g. larger turbines and floating turbines), new stressors and species in frontier regions, and cumulative effects for multiple projects at a regional scale. For both land-based and offshore wind, effectiveness of minimization measures (e.g. detection and deterrence technologies) and costs for monitoring, minimization, and mitigation were identified as overarching challenges. Social media summary. Turbine collisions and cumulative effects among the international environmental priorities for wind energy development. Environmental; turbines; wildlife; wind energyInternational assessment of priority environmental issues for land-based and offshore wind energy developmentpublishedVersio

Perovskite-perovskite tandem photovoltaics with optimized bandgaps

We demonstrate four and two-terminal perovskite-perovskite tandem solar cells with ideally matched bandgaps. We develop an infrared absorbing 1.2eV bandgap perovskite, $FA_{0.75}Cs_{0.25}Sn_{0.5}Pb_{0.5}I_3$, that can deliver 14.8 % efficiency. By combining this material with a wider bandgap $FA_{0.83}Cs_{0.17}Pb(I_{0.5}Br_{0.5})_3$ material, we reach monolithic two terminal tandem efficiencies of 17.0 % with over 1.65 volts open-circuit voltage. We also make mechanically stacked four terminal tandem cells and obtain 20.3 % efficiency. Crucially, we find that our infrared absorbing perovskite cells exhibit excellent thermal and atmospheric stability, unprecedented for Sn based perovskites. This device architecture and materials set will enable 'all perovskite' thin film solar cells to reach the highest efficiencies in the long term at the lowest costs

The absolute and relative risk of type 2 diabetes after gestational diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis of 129 studies.

AIMS: To estimate development of type 2 diabetes (T2DM) in women with previous gestational diabetes (GDM) and investigate characteristics associated with higher diagnoses, building on previous meta-analyses and exploring heterogeneity. METHODS: Systematic literature review of studies published up to October 2019. We included studies reporting progression to T2DM ≥6 months after pregnancy, if diagnostic methods were reported and ≥50 women with GDM participated. We conducted random-effects meta-analyses and meta-regression of absolute and relative T2DM risk. PROSPERO ID: CRD42017080299. RESULTS: In 129 included studies, the percentage diagnosed with T2DM was 12% (95% confidence interval 8-16%) higher for each additional year after pregnancy, with a third developing diabetes within 15 years. Development was 18% (5-34%) higher per unit BMI at follow-up, and 57% (39-70%) lower in White European populations compared to others (adjusted for ethnicity and follow-up). Women with GDM had a relative risk of T2DM of 8.3 (6.5-10.6). 17.0% (15.1-19.0%) developed T2DM overall, although heterogeneity between studies was substantial (I2 99.3%), and remained high after accounting for various study-level characteristics. CONCLUSIONS: Percentage developing T2DM after GDM is highly variable. These findings highlight the need for sustained follow-up after GDM through screening, and interventions to reduce modifiable risk factors.RD was funded by a PhD studentship from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) School for Primary Care Research (SPCR; SPCR-S-S102). This paper presents independent research funded by the NIHR SPCR. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR, the NHS or the Department of Health. RW was funded by an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship. JUS was funded by a Cancer Research UK Cancer Prevention Fellowship (C55650/A21464). SG was supported by the Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12015/4). The University of Cambridge has received salary support in respect of SG from the NHS in the East of England through the Clinical Academic Reserve