Cultural Heritage and Rising Seas: Water Management, Governance, and Heritage in Venice and Amsterdam

Global climate change poses threats, including sea level rise, that will affect cultural heritage. Cultural heritage is “the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible heritage attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present, and bestowed for the benefit of future generations” (UNESCO Office in Cairo, 2016).Venice and Amsterdam are two cities with cultural heritage sites and vulnerability to flooding as a result of geography and rising sea levels. This research is organized into two case studies that examine the history, water management strategies, current challenges, and governance of these two cities as it relates to protection of their cultural heritage in the face of flooding caused by sea level rise

The Privacy Hierarchy: A Comparative Analysis of the Intimate Privacy Protection Act vs. the Geolocational Privacy and Surveillance Act

The advent of the technological boom brought the world smartphones, social media, and Siri. These novel benefits, however, were accompanied by unchartered invasions of privacy. Congress has embarked on the seemingly endless path of protecting its constituents through civil and criminal legislation aimed at combatting such invasions. Two recent examples include the Intimate Privacy Protection Act (“IPPA”) and the Geolocational Privacy and Surveillance Act (“GPS Act”). Nonetheless, the IPPA, which was proposed to criminalize the dissemination of nonconsensual pornography, has garnered much less support—and much more criticism—than its geolocational counterpart. This Note discusses the striking similarities of both bills, both practically and elementally. The criminality of both bills turns on the issue of contextual consent. Why then do we see such discrepancies in support? The answer may lie in both legal and societal justifications behind privacy protections, suggesting that some forms of privacy warrant more protections than others. Hence, the privacy hierarchy

Investigation of the Viability of Thermographic Phosphor as a Sensing Mechanism for Structural Damage in Aerogel and PDMS

Detecting structural damage in a material before complete failure has been a challenge with respect to material access, sensing mechanism resolution, and environmental setting, among other factors. In this work, the feasibility of using thermographic phosphors as a non-contact, instantaneous, and customizable sensing mechanism for detection of structural damage was investigated. The two materials were (1) Sylgard 184 elastomer and (2) silica aerogels. Both materials were impregnated with thermographic phosphors using different methods and tested over a wide range of temperatures. The degree of fracture in either material was gradually increased to represent a complete material failure scenario and a gradual propagation of defect that has not yet led to ultimate failure. The aerogel synthesis methodology was optimized for phosphor application so that either a discrete layer of phosphor would be embedded or a homogeneous mix was created and phoshpor was distributed uniformly throughout the material. The discreteness of the phosphor layer was identified by two distinct points representing the entrance and exit points of the excitation and emission beams. The composite materials (homogeneous and otherwise) were fully characterized, and the sensitivity of the remote, non-contact sensing was evaluated. It was determined that fracture and failure in both aerogel and PDMS could be detected by phosphor thermometry and the limit of its resolution was ultimately determined by the thermal properties of the material, the choice of phosphors, and ambient temperature. In conclusion, thermogrpahic phosphor powders were successfully incorporated at discrete levels and superficially in aerogels and in PDMS materials and as a result can be used as means to interrogate the bulk of the material. Phosphor thermometry proved to be a viable option for remotely identifying structural defects in these two materials, with limitations. The changes in the thermal profile of the materials as a result of material defects were used to infer information about the structural health of the matierla

Thermal Transport Study on Actinide Oxides using Phonon Density of States Calculation

The thermophysical properties of nuclear fuels being developed in generation IV nuclear reactors are still being widely examined since the reactor’s operating performance is strongly correlated to the thermal transport properties of the fuel source. In this research, phonon density of states (DOS) are estimated for uranium dioxide (UO2), thorium dioxide (ThO2), and plutonium dioxide (PuO2) as these are all significant representations of the actinide oxide family. The crystalline structures of these fuels are altered to contain point defects in the form of primary atom vacancies, oxygen vacancies, and uranium substitution. Primary atom and oxygen vacancies involve a set percentage (0.1%, 0.5%, 1%, 2%, and 5%) of atoms being removed from the lattice structure of each fuel, while the uranium substitution in ThO2 and PuO2 replaces a set percentage of primary atoms with uranium-238 atoms. Phonon DOS are plotted using molecular dynamics simulations and the Fourier transform of the velocity autocorrelation function of atoms. The results show that phonon DOS is altered greatly by the presence of any form of vacancy defects; a significant change in DOS is observed in low frequency regime (~20 meV) where most of important energy carriers (phonons) are activated, and this explains the significant reduction in thermal conductivity in nuclear fuels by vacancy defects. Also, it is found that the change in phonon DOS by oxygen vacancies is smaller than that by primary atom vacancies, supporting our previous results that showed that the thermal conductivity is reduced by primary atom vacancies more than by oxygen vacancies. The most interesting observation is made on nuclear fuels with uranium substitution that shows very little variance in phonon DOS; the very small decrease in the thermal conductivities of PuO2 and ThO2 by uranium substitution results from their minimal alteration to lattice vibration

Securing the Global City: Crime, Consulting, Risk, and Ratings in the Production of Urban Space

The last decade has witnessed the rise of private transnational institutions that increasingly influence the organization and management of urban space. Two institutions are especially powerful in this regard: bond-rating agencies and global security firms. Bolstered by a discourse of risk and the need to securitize cities, these institutions have garnered enormous amounts of power with respect to urban social and spatial control. They are implicated in the imprisonment and displacement of marginalized populations, the intensification of gentrification, and general shifts in municipal funding priorities. The authors illustrate these themes through a case study of New York City, followed by an example of the transnational movement of these forces and their exportation to sites such as Mexico City. Democracy and the Transnational Private Sector, Symposium. Indiana University School of Law – Bloomington, April 12-13, 2007

Agreement in the Army\u27s Circumference Measurements and Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry

The United States military has two primary outcomes for fitness: combat readiness and physical appearance. In response to the Army Weight Control Program, height-weight tables were put forth to evaluate soldiers’ body fat percentages and screen for overweight individuals. However, few studies have examined the agreement in body composition estimates between the Army’s circumference measurements and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA). The purpose of this study was to quantify the agreement in body fat percentage estimates between the Army’s circumference measurements and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry in male Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (R.O.T.C.) cadets. Male R.O.T.C. cadets (N = 23) between the ages of 18-24 from Central Washington University’s R.O.T.C. program were used as participants. Participants underwent taping according to Army protocol, and a DXA test to examine percentage body fat. Utilizing SPSS, a modified Bland-Altman (BA) plot was used to analyze the quality of agreement for continuous variables. There was a significant negative correlation between the difference in percentage body fat (taping – DXA) and the DXA scores (r = -0.722, p \u3c 0.001), indicating poor agreement between the taping field test and the DXA laboratory criterion. The results depict little methodological agreement in percentage body fat between taping and the DXA. In contrast, when analyzing the categorical variables, overweight and over-fat, there is a moderate level of agreement between the height-weight tables and DXA methods as demonstrated by the 78.3% percent of agreement