Pavement grooving at John F. Kennedy International Airport

Pavement grooving at Kennedy Airpor

A Vision for Catholic Higher Education in the 21st Century: Reflecting on the Boston College Roundtable

The nucleus of any university is the intellectual life that unfolds among faculty and students. Inevitably, that intellectual life is shaped by the broader university context. Examining that process—in particular, its connection to a Catholic understanding of university mission—offers insight into pressing issues. For instance, what shifting social and academic conditions—both opportunities and challenges—set a context for campus conversations? How might Catholic institutions respond to these conditions? Can Catholic institutions provide a hospitable place for integrating faith and reason at the institutional and personal levels? Can the Catholic intellectual tradition serve as a constructive and creative lens for transforming Catholic higher education? And drawing on ideas that emerged during the Boston College Roundtable seminars, how might change occur

Reconfigurable antenna pattern verification

A method of verifying programmable antenna configurations is disclosed. The method comprises selecting a desired antenna configuration from a plurality of antenna configuration patterns, with the selected antenna configuration forming at least one reconfigurable antenna from reconfigurable antenna array elements. The method validates the formation of the selected antenna configuration to determine antenna performance of the at least one reconfigurable antenna

Ignatian Contemplative Pedagogy

Research Objective: There is a growing literature about contemplative pedagogy in higher education, an approach to learning which prioritizes experiential, reflective practices meant to promote autonomy in learning. This essay will explore how Ignatian pedagogy, rooted in the 475-year tradition of Jesuit education, promotes a form of contemplative pedagogy especially apt for what this journal describes as the VUCA world (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity). Research Problem and Methods: The essay addresses questions particularly relevant in the wake of the global pandemic: how can education promote greater self-care and self-knowledge? How can it promote greater compassion and care for others, especially the marginalized? How can it encourage people, especially the young, to develop practices that promote lifelong learning, flourishing, and responsibility? Process of Argumentation: The essay will review some of the burgeoning literature on contemplative pedagogy, and draw from the extensive literature about Ignatian pedagogy and especially the latter’s strong emphasis on processes of reflection for the sake of just action. Research Results: The essay will show that there is a rich well of resources in the Ignatian spiritual and pedagogical traditions that promote contemplative pedagogy, and that application of these resources in contemporary educational and formational contexts will help promote lifelong learning, flourishing, and responsibility towards others. Conclusions, Innovations, and Recommendations: Educators are encouraged to introduce or develop contemplative practices such as journaling, guided meditations, focused conversations among peers, reflective critical writing, and others

Antenna reconfiguration verification and validation

A method of testing the electrical functionality of an optically controlled switch in a reconfigurable antenna is provided. The method includes configuring one or more conductive paths between one or more feed points and one or more test point with switches in the reconfigurable antenna. Applying one or more test signals to the one or more feed points. Monitoring the one or more test points in response to the one or more test signals and determining the functionality of the switch based upon the monitoring of the one or more test points

Mining Explainable Predictive Features for Water Quality Management

With water quality management processes, identifying and interpreting relationships between features, such as location and weather variable tuples, and water quality variables, such as levels of bacteria, is key to gaining insights and identifying areas where interventions should be made. There is a need for a search process to identify the locations and types of phenomena that are influencing water quality and a need to explain how the quality is being affected and which factors are most relevant. This paper addresses both of these issues. A process is developed for collecting data for features that represent a variety of variables over a spatial region and which are used for training models and inference. An analysis of the performance of the features is undertaken using the models and Shapley values. Shapley values originated in cooperative game theory and can be used to aid in the interpretation of machine learning results. Evaluations are performed using several machine learning algorithms and water quality data from the Dublin Grand Canal basin

Investigating retail property market dynamics through spatial accessibility measures

Purpose The retail property market is constantly adopting to the continuous demand of retailers and their consumers. This paper aims to investigate retail property market dynamics through spatial accessibility measures of the City of York street network. It explores how spatial accessibility metrics (SAM) explain retail market dynamics (RMD) through changes in the city’s retail rental values and stock. Design/methodology/approach Valuation office agency (VOA) data sets (aspatial) and ordnance survey map (spatial) data form the empirical foundation for this investigation. Changes in rental value and retail stock between 2010 and 2017 VOA data sets represent the RMD variables. While, the configured street network measures of Space Syntax, namely, global integration, local integration, global choice and normalised angular choice form the SAM variables. The relationship between these variables is analysed through geo-visualisation and statistical testing using GIS and SPSS tools. Findings The study reveals that there has been an overall negative changes of 15 and 22% in rental value and retail stock, respectively, even though some locations within the sampled city (York, North Yorkshire, England) indicated positive changes. The study further indicated that changes in retail rental value and stock have occurred within locations with good accessibility index. It also verifies that there are spatial and statistical relationship between variables and 22% of RMD variability was jointly accounted for by SAM. Originality/value This research is first to investigates changes in retail property market variables through spatial accessibility measures of space syntax. It contributes to the burgeoning research field of real estate and Space Syntax