So There Might Be Rain

pages 112-11

Investigating and Sharing the Stories of Our Community's Heroes

This short documentary shines a light on Greenville Fire-Rescue, its daily operations, and the men and women who serve the Greenville community from behind the scenes. Greenville Fire-Rescue follows a nationwide trend in combining firefighting and emergency medical services (EMS) into one department, meaning no worker is just a paramedic or a firefighter. This documentary follows Greenville Fire-Rescue workers in the field on fire and EMS calls, training and working at the station, and solidifying the bonds that characterize the family they have formed with each other.. All video footage and interviews were shot during volunteer ride-alongs on ambulances and fire trucks with two Greenville Fire-Rescue stations. This piece showcases the history of these departments, the tasks of its workers, and the emotions experienced by those dedicating their lives to saving others. The purpose of the documentary is to provide a unique perspective into the rarely shared culture of the men and women heroically serving the Greenville community, beyond the stereotypes of the general public and information the media shares. The components in this documentary bring life to a necessity that is all too often trivialized or taken for granted by those it serves. Here, through video, I explore not only what the Greenville Fire-Rescue workers do, but also how they do it, and more importantly why they do it.B.S

Cora May Hears of the Slaughter

page 11

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThe current study evaluated the Computerized Screening System (CSS) for ports of entry. Additional primary objectives included evaluating the Relevant Comparison Test (RCT) for use at ports of entry, less invasive alternatives to skin conductance and the cardiograph, and alternative statistical methods for classification. Data were collected in two phases. Complete sets of recordings were obtained from 169 Phase 1 participants and 185 Phase 2 participants (N = 354). Participants were either guilty (n = 230) or innocent (n = 124) of committing a mock crime. Guilty participants transported a substance that appeared to be illegal drugs (n = 119), or they transported a device that appeared to be a bomb (n = 111). When the participant reported to the laboratory, a research assistant initiated a computer program that presented prerecorded auditory instructions and test questions to the participant. The computer administered a test entitled the Relevant Comparison Test (RCT) that was developed specifically for this project. The RCT included 12 relevant questions about the bomb condition, 12 relevant questions about the drug condition, and 24 neutral questions. Respiration, electrodermal, cardiovascular, and pupil reactions were recorded continuously throughout the test. As expected, guilty participants who transported the drugs reacted more strongly to questions about the drugs than to questions about the bomb. Participants who were guilty of transporting the bomb reacted more strongly to questions about the bomb. Innocent participants reacted similarly to questions about the drugs and the bomb, although there was a tendency for some innocent participants to react to questions about the drugs. Increases in diastolic blood pressure and systolic blood pressure were most diagnostic of group membership behind skin conductance. Contrary to expectations, pupil measures did not perform as well as skin conductance measures, and traditional discriminant analysis was more effective than the computer-intensive bagging and boosting classification techniques

Energy security assessment framework and three case-studies

This chapter provides a novel framework for assessing energy security and illustrates its application by the Global Energy Assessment, the IEA Model for Short-term energy security and in several studies of long-term global energy security

The concept of energy security: Beyond the four As

AbstractEnergy security studies have expanded from their classic beginnings following the 1970s oil crises to encompass various energy sectors and increasingly diverse issues. This viewpoint contributes to the re-examination of the meaning of energy security that has accompanied this expansion. Our starting point is that energy security is an instance of security in general and thus any concept of it should address three questions: “Security for whom?”, “Security for which values?” and “Security from what threats?” We examine an influential approach – the ‘four As of energy security’ (availability, accessibility, affordability, and acceptability) and related literature of energy security – to show it does not address these questions. We subsequently summarize recent insights which propose a different concept of energy security as ‘low vulnerability of vital energy systems’. This approach opens the road for detailed exploration of vulnerabilities as a combination of exposure to risks and resilience and of the links between vital energy systems and critical social functions. The examination of energy security framed by this concept involves several scientific disciplines and provides a useful platform for scholarly analysis and policy learning

COVID-19 weakens both sides in the battle between coal and renewables

By disrupting investment, supply chains and technology diffusion, COVID-19 may harm renewables more than coal, but still weaken coal lock-in in developing countries. To enable new low-carbon energy choices, international flows of low-carbon technology and policy expertise must quickly re-emerge

Failing the formative phase: The global diffusion of nuclear power is limited by national markets

Understanding the role of technology characteristics and the context in the diffusion of new energy technologies is important for assessing feasibility of climate mitigation. We examine the historical adoption of nuclear power as a case of a complex large scale energy technology. We conduct an event history analysis of grid connections of first sizable commercial nuclear power reactors in 79 countries between 1950 and 2018. We show that the introduction of nuclear power can largely be explained by contextual variables such as the proximity of a country to a major technology supplier (‘ease of diffusion’), the size of the economy, electricity demand growth, and energy import dependence (‘market attractiveness’). The lack of nuclear newcomers in the early 1990s can be explained by the lack of countries with high growth in electricity demand and sufficient capacities to build their first nuclear power plant, either on their own or with international help. We also find that nuclear accidents, the pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the advances made in competing technologies played only a minor role in nuclear technology failing to be established in more countries. Our analysis improves understanding of the feasibility of introducing contested and expensive technologies in a heterogenous world with motivations and capacities that differ across countries and by a patchwork of international relations. While countries with high state capacity or support from a major technology supplier are capable of introducing large-scale technologies quickly, technology diffusion to other regions might undergo significant delays due to lower motivations and capacities

Coal-exit alliance must confront freeriding sectors to propel Paris-aligned momentum

The global phase-out of coal by mid-century is considered vital to the Paris Agreement to limit warming well-below 2 \ub0C above pre-industrial levels. Since the inception of the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) at COP23, political ambitions to accelerate the decline of coal have mounted to become the foremost priority at COP26. However, mitigation research lacks the tools to assess whether this bottom-up momentum can self-propagate toward Paris alignment. Here, we introduce dynamic policy evaluation (DPE), an evidence-based approach for emulating real-world policy-making. Given empirical relationships established between energy-economic developments and policy adoption, we endogenize national political decision-making into the integrated assessment model REMIND via multistage feedback loops with a probabilistic coalition accession model. DPE finds global PPCA participation <5% likely against a current policies backdrop and, counterintuitively, foresees that intracoalition leakage risks may severely compromise sector-specific, demand-side action. DPE further enables policies to interact endogenously, demonstrated here by the PPCA’s path-dependence to COVID-19 recovery investments