Building Perceptions

Throughout the histories of modern architecture and modern landscape design, two distinct yet broad schools of thought have existed: the intellectual, or rational, and the experiential, or empirical. Intellectual works require a previously acquired knowledge of the analogy, symbol or representation which was used to rationalize each design move. By contrast, in experiential works, human emotions and senses are realized and are given hierarchical precedence in the thought processes of design. The current growth of both techniques of presentation and representation via digital technology as a generative means of creating architecture has taken the inhabitants out of the design process in order for the architect to achieve his or her own personal agendas. Such works represent the pursuit of an “architecture of autonomy” whose target audience is the architectural elite. These intellectually and technologically driven processes produce architecture for architecture’s sake resulting in the creation of inhabitable sculpture alien to everyday human activity. Yet architecture has always possessed the capacity to engage the senses of its users, visitors and inhabitants in order to promote a heightened sense of awareness of the immediate architectural milieu. One’s built surroundings can bring forth the realization that the work of architecture itself is conceived and built according to how a person might perceive, interact with and circulate through the spaces

Unfair Collection: Reclaiming Control of Publicly Available Personal Information from Data Scrapers

Rising enthusiasm for consumer data protection in the United States has resulted in several states advancing legislation to protect the privacy of their residents’ personal information. But even the newly enacted California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA)—the most comprehensive data privacy law in the country— leaves a wide-open gap for internet data scrapers to extract, share, and monetize consumers’ personal information while circumventing regulation. Allowing scrapers to evade privacy regulations comes with potentially disastrous consequences for individuals and society at large. This Note argues that even publicly available personal information should be protected from bulk collection and misappropriation by data scrapers. California should reform its privacy legislation to align with the European Union’s General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR), which requires data scrapers to provide notice to data subjects upon the collection of their personal information regardless of its public availability. This reform could lay the groundwork for future legislation at the federal level

Modeling Energy Savings from Urban Shade Trees: An Assessment of the CITYgreen Energy Conservation Module

CITYgreen software has become a commonly used tool to quantify the benefits of urban shade trees. Despite its frequent use, little research has been conducted to validate results of the CITYgreen energy conservation module. The first objective of this study is to perform a familiar application of CITYgreen software to predict the potential energy savings contribution of existing tree canopies in residential neighborhoods during peak cooling summer months. Unlike previous studies utilizing CITYgreen, this study also seeks to assess the software\u27s performance by comparing model results (i.e., predicted energy savings) with actual savings (i.e., savings derived directly from energy consumption data provided by the electric utility provider). Homeowners in an older neighborhood with established trees were found to use less energy for air-conditioning than homeowners in a recently developed site. Results from the assessment of model performance indicated that CITYgreen more accurately estimated the energy savings in the highly vegetated, older neighborhood

On the proliferation resistance of thorium-uranium nuclear fuel

This paper will highlight the historical and potential future uses of 232Th and 233U both in terms of civil and military applications. A brief section on the differences between 233U and 239Pu will be presented and how these could impact proliferation-resistance assessments. Finally, a set of open questions regarding 233U will be presented, some of which will be answered as part of this research project

Homeward Bound: Food-Related Transportation Strategies for Low Income and Transit Dependent Communities

Food access, transportation policy, and innovative transportation programs highlighted in this groundbreaking report

What Contractors Wish We Knew

From design to construction, utility coordination is a hot topic. The coordination in design is a vital part of the coordination efforts, since design affects construction. This presentation will focus on the Contractor’s perspective of utility coordination and how designers can better coordinate with utilities in design to positively impact construction

Dissemination of Earth Remote Sensing Data for Use in the NOAA/NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit

The National Weather Service has developed the Damage Assessment Toolkit (DAT), an application for smartphones and tablets that allows for the collection, geolocation, and aggregation of various damage indicators that are collected during storm surveys. The DAT supports the often laborintensive process where meteorologists venture into the stormaffected area, allowing them to acquire geotagged photos of the observed damage while also assigning estimated EFscale categories based upon their observations. Once the data are collected, the DAT infrastructure aggregates the observations into a server that allows other meteorologists to perform quality control and other analysis steps before completing their survey and making the resulting data available to the public. In addition to inperson observations, Earth remote sensing from operational, polar-orbiting satellites can support the damage assessment process by identifying portions of damage tracks that may be missed due to road limitations, access to private property, or time constraints. Products resulting from change detection techniques can identify damage to vegetation and the land surface, aiding in the survey process. In addition, higher resolution commercial imagery can corroborate groundbased surveys by examining higherresolution commercial imagery. As part of an ongoing collaboration, NASA and NOAA are working to integrate near realtime Earth remote sensing observations into the NOAA/NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. This presentation will highlight recent developments in a streamlined approach for disseminating Earth remote sensing data via web mapping services and a new menu interface that has been integrated within the DAT. A review of current and future products will be provided, including products derived from MODIS and VIIRS for preliminary track identification, along with conduits for higherresolution Landsat, ASTER, and commercial imagery as they become available. In addition to tornado damage assessments, the team is also investigating the use of near realtime imagery for identifying hail damage to vegetation, which also results in large swaths of damage, particularly in the central United States during the peak growing season months of June, July, and August. This presentation will present an overview of recent activities, challenges and successes, best practices, and opportunities for future work and collaboratio

Acoustic-Structure Interaction in Rocket Engines: Validation Testing

While analyzing a rocket engine component, it is often necessary to account for any effects that adjacent fluids (e.g., liquid fuels or oxidizers) might have on the structural dynamics of the component. To better characterize the fully coupled fluid-structure system responses, an analytical approach that models the system as a coupled expansion of rigid wall acoustic modes and in vacuo structural modes has been proposed. The present work seeks to experimentally validate this approach. To experimentally observe well-coupled system modes, the test article and fluid cavities are designed such that the uncoupled structural frequencies are comparable to the uncoupled acoustic frequencies. The test measures the natural frequencies, mode shapes, and forced response of cylindrical test articles in contact with fluid-filled cylindrical and/or annular cavities. The test article is excited with a stinger and the fluid-loaded response is acquired using a laser-doppler vibrometer. The experimentally determined fluid-loaded natural frequencies are compared directly to the results of the analytical model. Due to the geometric configuration of the test article, the analytical model is found to be valid for natural modes with circumferential wave numbers greater than four. In the case of these modes, the natural frequencies predicted by the analytical model demonstrate excellent agreement with the experimentally determined natural frequencies

Implementing the Texas Coastal Exchange

The unfettered development of Houston's flood-prone areas undoubtedly magnified the tremendous damage caused by Hurricane Harvey, but zoning or other land use controls are unpopular on the Texas coast and are unlikely to be adopted as a result. With this in mind, the SSPEED Center at Rice University looked to innovation and the market system to find a creative solution to protect important natural, flood-prone areas from further development while generating income for landowners. The authors propose the establishment of a Texas Coastal Exchange (TCX) — a trading clearinghouse where willing buyers and sellers enter into transactions involving the sale of ecological services. For instance, native prairies and wetlands still exist in the western and northwestern portions of Harris County. Such areas have an amazing natural capacity to absorb rainwater and store it in the soil. An eco-market-based approach could pay landowners to raise a “crop” of stored water. The authors identify additional sources of income for landowners that could survive flooding, from traditional (cattle grazing) to untraditional (sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide in soil), and lay out a plan for implementing the TCX