Public Participation Plan: A Strategy for Citizen Involvement

DVRPC has a long history of public involvement in its plans and programs, beginning in the 1970s when federal mandates outlined the basics of citizen involvement. In 2001, the DVRPC Board adopted a Public Participation Plan, which was designed for DVRPC's Board, staff and the general public as an outline of the Commission's overall strategy for public participation; it also included the policies that were adopted as inherent to the operation of this agency into the twenty-first century. Updated in 2004, the Public Participation Plan now includes a public disclosure policy and an Environmental Justice Protocol. It is now time to examine and reissue the Public Participation Plan, to ensure its compliance with current federal transportation legislation, specifically the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU). This also provides an excellent opportunity for the Commission to reaffirm its commitment to a transparent, open and inclusive planning process

DVRPC Planner's Methodology

DVRPC has developed a Planner's Methodology, which is designed to provide guidance to staff in meeting Title VI and Environmental Justice (EJ) mandates and structuring a public participation plan at the project or study level. How meaningful public participation is gathered and implemented into a planning process may differ widely, depending on the type and scope of the project. The Planner's Methodology sets a framework for developing individual public participation plans for specific projects, offers a "tool kit" of public participation strategies, and offers instruction on how to utilize DVRPC's Indicators of Potential Disadvantage (IPD) methodology, as well as an overview of Title VI and EJ mandates. Overall, the Planner's Methodology builds upon DVRPC's philosophy and intent to place public participation, Title VI, and EJ at the forefront of the Commission's priorities

Environmental Justice at DVRPC: Fiscal Year 2010

In 2001, DVRPC published the "... and Justice for All" report to identify impacts of disparate funding and services on defined low-income and minority groups. A methodology was created, refined in subsequent years, to identify populations that may be adversely affected by transportation planning decisions. This report is an annual update of that initial report and catalogues DVRPC's fiscal year 2010 programs and plans that contain Environmental Justice (EJ) elements. Descriptions for each project or program that utilize DVRPC's EJ methodology are discussed, including DVRPC's Long-Range Plan, the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), Coordinated Human Services Transportation Plan (CHSTP), and corridor studies

Molecular dynamics simulations of surfactants' adsorption in emulsion polymerizations and of CO2 capture by graphene-polymer composites.

302 p.Adsorption is an increase in the concentration of a dissolved substance at the interface of a solid and a liquid phase due to the operation of surface forces. Adsorption has emerged as an important process for various industrial applications, such as emulsion polymerization and gas separation. Surfactants have a crucial role in emulsion polymerization due to their inward properties; namely, they affect the polymer particles nucleation and prevent them from the coagulation by the reduction of surface tension. However, many aspects of their use are poorly understood and cause significant problems. In this thesis the combination of experimental and computational studies will be reported with the aim to elucidate the adsorption properties of ionic and non-ionic surfactants on hydrophobic polymer surface such as poly(styrene). Also, since the particle nucleation behavior of nonionic surfactants exhibits deviations from the Smith-Ewart model, which described the kinetic mechanism of the particle nucleation typical for ionic surfactant, we seek to take a deeper look of the behavior of these two classes of surfactants at monomer/polymer-water interface during the emulsion polymerization of styrene. Three-dimensional graphene-polymer porous materials have been proposed recently as potential adsorbents for carbon dioxide capture. Owing to their mechanical stability and ease of regeneration they can potentially alleviate short- coming encountered by other sorbents. Molecular dynamics simulation will be performed to study the adsorption of carbon dioxide by different graphene-polymer composite systems. Additionally an estimation of the CO2 selectivity respect to N2 and CH4 will be examined to prove the ability of the composite materials to discriminate against these competing gasses.Polyma

Environmental Justice at DVRPC: Fiscal Policy 2008

In 2001, DVRPC published the . . and Justice for All report to identify impacts of disparate funding and services on defined low-income and minority groups. A methodology was created, refined in subsequent years, to identify populations that may be adversely affected by transportation planning decisions. This report is an annual update of that initial report and catalogues DVRPC's fiscal year 2008 programs and plans that contain Environmental Justice (EJ) elements. Descriptions for each project or program that utilize DVRPC's EJ methodology are discussed, including a TIP analysis and corridor studies. Additional Title VI and Public Outreach efforts are incorporated into this report, as are forthcoming procedures for EJ and Title VI

Double dissociation of neural responses supporting perceptual and cognitive components of social cognition: Evidence from processing of others' pain

Models on how perceptual and cognitive information on others' mental states are treated by the cognitive architecture are often framed as duplex models considering two independent systems. In the context of the neuroscience of empathy analogous systems have been described. Using event-related potentials (i.e., ERPs) technique, we tested the hypothesis of temporal dissociation of two functional systems. We implemented a design in which perceptual (i.e., painful or neutral facial expressions) and contextual (i.e., painful or neutral related sentences) cues on others' mental states were orthogonally manipulated. Painful expressions selectively modulated the early activity at 110\u2013360 ms over fronto-central and centro-parietal regions, whereas painful contexts selectively modulated the late activity at 400\u2013840 ms over these same regions. Notably, the reactions to pain triggered by these cues added up when both were available, that is the joint reaction was characterized by additive effects. These findings favor a model assuming distinct neural paths of perceptual and cognitive processing, at least when the cognitive component is triggered by language

Parametric Representation of the Architectural Orders: Testing of Parametric Modelling for Simulation and Interpretation of Classical Architecture

The Architectural Orders have always occupied a key role in architectural doctrine. During the Renaissance, after the rediscovery of the Vitruvian text, each of the most famous architects gave their own interpretation of composition and proportion with respect to the Orders. After a careful analysis of some of the main treaties, it has been necessary to determine a unified interpretation of the genesis of the Orders and to create a single digital model that could be declinable in various versions. By advanced digital techniques, it was possible to generate a representative algorithm in a basic modifiable structure using different parameters. Results are also important due to the direct comparison between authors. The algorithms may also support accurate representations and interpretation of the actual artefact’s shape, allowing us to hypothesize the author’s style and, in case of restoration, to operate in a consistent way

Dealing with others' physical pain reveals variance in empathic processes: Evidence from event-related potentials.

The present work consists of a review of 5 event-related potentials (i.e., ERPs) experiments I conducted, which deal with the multifaceted nature of human empathy for pain (Experiment 1) and variances in empathic processes, as a function of othersâ race (Experiment 2) and othersâ perceived trustworthiness, i.e. driven by facial features (Experiments 4-5), addressed through classical and modified versions of the pain decision task. The classical version of the pain decision task requires participants to decide whether presented stimuli (either pictures of individuals or body parts) receive either painful or neutral stimulation. Furthermore, prior to investigate trustworthiness as modulator of neural empathic response, I adopted in Experiment 3 a different paradigm, namely the change detection task, and a direct neural correlate of the resolution of visual working memory (i.e., VWM) representations to test whether trustworthiness is automatically extracted from faces biasing VWM processing. The main issue of the neuroscientific research on empathy for pain is about its multiple aspects. Indeed, neuroscientific research identified at least two subprocesses constituting empathy: Experience sharing and mentalizing. The former encompasses affective and sensorimotor aspects to inner feel the otherâs emotive state; the latter allows to infer/attribute the otherâs mental state. Experience sharing and mentalizing appear to be at least anatomically dissociated. One important aim of the present thesis is to provide evidence on the possible functional dissociation in the temporal domain. In Experiment 1 I addressed this issue by implementing a new version of the pain decision task. I presented participants with both sensorimotor (picture of a face with either painful or neutral expression) and contextual information (a sentence describing either a painful or neutral context) to highlight the deployment of electrophysiological reaction to pain related to the both subprocesses and I provided evidence of selective engagement of experience sharing and mentalizing into two time-windows. This is the starting point of the present studies on the way of exploring variance in neural empathic response. Previous studies suggested that people are more naturally empathic towards own-race individuals relative to other-race individuals (Avenanti et al., 2010; Xu et al., 2009). In Experiment 2 I provided compelling evidence that such preference is confined to experience sharing. Indeed, mentalizing is responsive to other-race pain. Although implicitly appraised, race of a face is processed quickly and automatically driven by physical facial features. Recently it has been demonstrated that evaluation of perceived individualsâ facial trustworthiness is appraised at first sight (Willis and Todorov, 2006), similarly to race. I hypothesized that trustworthiness, either in computerized faces (Experiment 4) and real faces (Experiment 5) plays another key role in modulating empathy even in the absence of previous knowledge on othersâ personality and social behavior because it can implicitly and quickly shape our social interactions. In an attempt to determine the efficacy of trustworthiness appraisal, I tested in Experiment 3 whether and how standardized physical facial features of trustworthiness (Oosterhof and Todorov, 2008) bias VWM processing even when task-irrelevant