Taxi: Cabs and Capitalism in New York City

[Excerpt] Three significant events have happened since 2005 when this book was first published. (1) Starting in 2004, die city of New York began advancing the Taxi Technology Enhancement Program (TTE), which would require every yellow taxi in NYC to be fitted with a non-navigational Global Positioning System-based tracking system. Driver opposition to this system grew over the next three years, leading up to a series of strikes in September and October 2007. Even as we go to press, this battle continues. (2) In early 2007, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) became the first independent labor union to become a full member of the New York State Central Labor Council, a historic development with tremendous significance for the labor movement. (3) Finally, based on burgeoning interest and several taxi- organizing initiatives emerging throughout the United States, NYTWA along with the Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania organized a founding meeting of the Taxi Workers International (TWI) in March 2007. All three dramatic events promise long-term effects. In many ways die intertwined nature of these events has given me a more complete understanding of the challenges the contemporary labor movement faces. Accordingly, this Cornell edition carries a new epilogue that not only describes these events arid the actions that surrounded them but also attempts to synthesize them theoretically. The result, I hope, is a compelling conclusion to the book that will open up fresh debates within the labor movement

Comparative Analysis of Big Data Analytics Software in Assessing Sample Data

Over the last few years, big data has emerged as an important topic of discussion in most firms owing to its ability of creation, storage and processing of content at a reasonable price. Big data consists of advanced tools and techniques to process large volumes of data in organisations. Investment in big data analytics has almost become a necessity in large-sized firms, particularly multinational companies, for its unique benefits, particularly in prediction and identification of various trends. Some of the most popular big data analytics software used today are MapReduce, Hive, Tableau and Hive, while the framework Hadoop enables easy processing of such extremely large data sets. The current research attempts to create a comparative assessment of five such applications namely IBM SPSS, IBM Watson Analytics, R, Minitab and SAS. The case taken into effect for the test was that of the factors affecting housing affordability in the US. Based on the statistics obtained from the American Housing Survey (AHS) database, the researcher has identified different factors impacting the affordability in the states. The technique of reducing variables though Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and a model based on partial least square regression/polynomial regression was fitted to check the impact on the affordability. The primary findings suggest that majorly age of the head of the household, income earned were the two most important factors affecting the pricing in the region. Also, a comparison is drawn at the end of study with interpretation of the most and least effective applications

Neuroprotective Effects of Garlic A Review

Garlic has been investigated extensively for health benefits, resulting in more than one thousand publications over the last decade alone. It is considered one of the best disease preventive foods, based on its potent and varied effects. Midlife risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, such as high serum total cholesterol, raised LDL, increased LDL oxidation, increased platelet aggregation, impaired fibrinolysis, hypertension and homocystinemia are important risk factors for dementia in later years. These risk factors play a major role in the genesis of atherosclerosis of vital arteries causing both cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease. Garlic is best known for its lipid lowering and anti-atherogenic effects. Possible mechanisms of action include inhibition of the hepatic activities of lipogenic and cholesterogenic enzymes that are thought to be the genesis for dyslipidemias, increased excretion of cholesterol and suppression of LDL-oxidation. Oxidative stress caused by increased accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in cells has been implicated in the pathophysiology of several neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease (AD). Several studies have demonstrated the antioxidant properties of garlic and its different preparations including Aged Garlic Extract (AGE). AGE and S-allyl-cysteines (SAC), a bioactive and bioavailable component in garlic preparations have been shown in a number of in vitro studies to protect neuronal cells against beta-amyloid (A) toxicity and apoptosis. Thus the broad range of anti-atherogenic, antioxidant and anti-apoptotic protection afforded by garlic may be extended to its neuroprotective action, helping to reduce the risk of dementia, including vascular dementia and AD

Performance analysis of RTS/CTS protocol over Basic Access in wireless networks

The CSMS/CA protocol is employed in wireless networks in order to overcome issues such as the hidden node problem. This mechanism is expected to handle collisions better using the RTS/CTS mechanism. This method will allow a participating node to take part in communication only if it receives a "Clear to Send" message and thereby, theoretically "avoiding" collision. The objective of this paper is to analyse the improvement that the RTS/CTS mode brings over the Basic Access mode. The paper presents the study of wireless nodes within a specific area with increasing node concentration to verify the performance impact of a protocol in wireless networks, particularly when the node concentration increases

Evaluation of Signal Attenuation for Bluetooth, ZigBee and Sound in Foliage

Rural environments have been struggling to get connected due to various reasons, one of them being the fact that the signal attenuation is too high in foliage, drastically affecting range and power consumption. This study evaluates the effect of foliage in the attenuation of 2.4 GHz signals, namely Bluetooth and ZigBee. An alternate candidate signal, sound is also analyzed in a similar environment. In order to further the experiment, a simulation model using Omnet++ was created and the alpha value, which marks the environmental constant was noted. We have concluded from the study that the signal attenuation for the 2.4 GHz signals are very high in foliage. The high frequency sound signals also suffered drastic signal loss in foliage, but the low frequencies penetrated quite well. Therefore, high frequency signals are poor candidate carrier signals for such environments

A novel pre-class learning content approach for the implementation of flipped classrooms

The nascent recognition of computing in curriculum across countries is also accompanied by several pedagogic inefficiencies especially concerning insufficient time available for teacher-student interaction. In this paper, a flipped classroom concept was identified as an effective approach to teaching students at various levels in the academia including Higher Education. Preparing the pre-class content and considering the format used to deliver it has not gained much consideration. There are several ways in which this content could be provided to students to prepare them before an in-class activity where a flipped-classroom approach can be implemented. The present study analyzed the success of the flipped classroom concept based on a comparative analysis of the two types of flipped classroom pre-class content delivery methods: online videos and online PowerPoint slides. Evaluation was performed using paired T-test. The results show that the two approaches have significantly different means and huge differences between them. The students preferred online videos to online PowerPoint (ppt) methods underlining the importance of the proposed flipped classroom approach

Spin of a batted baseball

AbstractExperiments are conducted to investigate the spin of a baseball undergoing an oblique collision with a bat. A baseball was fired horizontally at speeds up to 120 mph onto a 3”-diameter cylinder of wood that was rigidly attached to a wall. In one experiment, a two-wheel pitching machine was used in which the backspin or topspin of the incident ball could be adjusted. In another experiment, an air cannon was used to project the ball with no spin. In both experiments, markers on the ball were tracked with high-speed video to determine the velocity and spin vectors, before and after the scattering. Our primary results are as follows: (1) For a given angle of incidence, the scattered spin is nearly independent of the incident spin; (2) The spin of the scattered baseball is considerably larger than expected for a model whereby the ball rolls before leaving the surface. Implications for the spin of batted baseballs will be explored

Ambient noise analysis on sound for use in wireless digital transmission

Ambient noise is present everywhere in varying degrees of frequencies and amplitudes. This paper tries to analyse the ambient noises in various environments ranging from quiet room to busy public places to remote jungle type locations in order to study the impact of noise while using sound as a low frequency wireless carrier for digital data. We try to find the suitable frequency band for text transmission using soundby identifyingthe sound spectrum band least susceptible to ambient noise and do some test communication