Innovations in Sustainable Airport Planning Efforts: A Case Study of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport

This report explores the best airport facility design strategies that address environmental concerns of the future. Instead of focusing on facility expansion, airport facilities should learn to adapt - whether through progressive facility design standards or adding additional green space to the surrounding community. Specifically, the research focuses on the most sustainable practices in airport master planning that are oriented towards pleasing businesses, passengers, and the community. Airport area development has been considered until now only a "minor strand of urban transportation planning;" however, the subject is "slowly gaining prominence in the planning, urban geography, and economic development literature" and should therefore be increasingly research (Freestone and Baker, 2011, p. 263). Thoroughly researched practices will enable development guidelines to direct practices that ensure successful development.Nancey Green Leig

Northside Drive as a Multimodal Developmental Corridor: Transformation from Utilitarian Auto Route to Grand Transit Boulevard

A Studio Project of the Georgia Tech School of City and Regional Planning - Fall, 2012.Executive Summary -- Final DraftThe studio explored ways to transform Northside Drive from a dismal, disorganized underperforming corridor that frames the west side of the Atlanta core into a grand transit boulevard. Picture a tree-lined, well-lit boulevard, wide and grand, with medians, and ample accommodation of all travel modes, lined with mid-rise mixed income residential buildings with as much retail and other ground floor activities as the market will support. With the proper transportation and zoning design, over time this now dismal traffic corridor will transform all the way from I-75 to West End. Increasing mixed use development densities will support a growing share of transit, pedestrian and bicycle uses as distances shorten between residential and jobs concentrations. Planned and developed properly, the transformation will break down Northside’s historic race and class divide to become a great urban street whose assets and attractions provide a common ground for sharing the strengths of diverse populations.Michael Dobbin

Triple RNA-Seq Reveals Synergy in a Human Virus-Fungus Co-infection Model.

High-throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) is routinely applied to study diverse biological processes; however, when performed separately on interacting organisms, systemic noise intrinsic to RNA extraction, library preparation, and sequencing hampers the identification of cross-species interaction nodes. Here, we develop triple RNA-seq to simultaneously detect transcriptomes of monocyte-derived dendritic cells (moDCs) infected with the frequently co-occurring pulmonary pathogens Aspergillus fumigatus and human cytomegalovirus (CMV). Comparing expression patterns after co-infection with those after single infections, our data reveal synergistic effects and mutual interferences between host responses to the two pathogens. For example, CMV attenuates the fungus-mediated activation of pro-inflammatory cytokines through NF-κB (nuclear factor κB) and NFAT (nuclear factor of activated T cells) cascades, while A. fumigatus impairs viral clearance by counteracting viral nucleic acid-induced activation of type I interferon signaling. Together, the analytical power of triple RNA-seq proposes molecular hubs in the differential moDC response to fungal/viral single infection or co-infection that contribute to our understanding of the etiology and, potentially, clearance of post-transplant infections