Aging in a Suburban Context: An exploration of how design can help maintain the quality of life and social connections, reduce cost of daily life and reconnect with nature and memory in the suburban context.

Retirement and Aging are very important aspects of a person’s life. Many changes in lifestyle, ability to manage one\u27s personal environment occur after retirement and are associated with emotional changes, diminishing physical and cognitive ability. Suburban single-family homes and neighborhoods that were very advantageous for young adults raising families become unmanageable in later years and contribute to the physical or psychological issues faced by aging populations. These physical or psychological problems can be addressed through designing a community in which the aging residents feel independent, get adequate stimulation of the brain and good physical activity. The living arrangements, food, gardening, water and past memories, affect the lifestyles of the elderly retirees. The quest of this thesis is to design a community that maintains and even improves the quality of life for people after retirement by providing them with a living arrangement which is still connected to the suburbs, a condensed neighborhood that maintains ties to familiar neighbors and places, proximity to water, food production and reliving past memories. The goal of this thesis is to investigate issues and literatures related to aging in place and sustainable communities, and apply this to design investigation. The design investigation selected to explore this thesis is a sustainable Senior Housing community that provides a smooth transition from being employed to being retired, and supports the residents as they age in place. A successful ‘Aging in Place’ program and community maximizes the personal dignity and the functional independence of the residents. Design of a sustainable community for aging in place needs to include features that allow individuals to adjust their effort and contribution to community as they age; that encourage social interaction, connection with nature and conservation of resources, and put in place elements that allow residents to receive short and longer term assistance with the activities of daily lives (Heumann & Boldy, 1993). The design investigation focuses on condensing the familiar aspects of the existing suburban condition within a more manageable neighborhood. Food, water, fitness and opportunities to create and cherish memories come together in this proposed neighborhood, community and the living unit itself

Shanghai, Dubai, Mumbai Or Goodbye?

Starting in 2007, Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) from Asia and the Middle East have invested billions of dollars in major U.S. financial firms. The primary driving force behind their growth is rising commodity prices, in particular oil. Given that SWFs represent a relatively new, cash-rich investment group, we studied the public policy concerns with their investments, SWFs mode of entry, and how does the market react to the investment. SWFs lack of transparency with regards to their investment motives and governance structure is cause for concern. While taking full opportunity of depressed security prices as a result of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, they are also being prudent by investing mostly in preferred stocks and fixed-income convertible securities of large U.S. corporations that are followed by many analysts and are highly liquid. Despite investing handsomely in U.S. targets and adopting a hands-off approach toward management; the liquidity crisis continues to perpetuate the decline in SWF-targets’ stock price post-investment. Using an event study parameter approach, we found the short-run market reaction to be statistically insignificant in 11 out of 12 announcements of SWF investments; but in the months following the investment, SWF-targets underperform both the S&P500 and the Dow Jones Financial Services Index Fund.Stock Market, Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs), SWF-targets’ stock price post-investment

Decision support system to schedule and monitor crop production operations using fuzzy logic

Conventional analytical procedures based on classical set theory or first-order logic have led to only partial success in the tactical scheduling of agricultural operations, an important farm management problem. The partial success can be attributed to the fact that while information available in the agricultural environment is fuzzy in nature, the classical set theory and first-order logic manipulate information based on the assumption that it is not fuzzy. The theory of fuzzy subsets which allows representation of inexact information has been suggested as a possible tool that can be used successfully in such circumstances;Trafficability of the field has a great bearing in deciding whether or not to carry out a given agricultural operation. Classical set theory, which divides days into workable and not workable sets is inadequate for farm management decision making. An alternative approach using fuzzy set theory to assess the extent to which a field may be dry enough to be trafficable was suggested. This approach was compared with a classical set theory based approach and was found to yield results more informative in deciding whether or not to carry out an operation on a chosen day. This was particularly true at intermediate levels of soil moisture content;Agricultural operations are carried out to satisfy certain objectives like preparing the field for planting, planting the seeds, and applying fertilizer and herbicides at the right time. Deciding whether or not to carry out an agricultural operation on a chosen day requires evaluation of the extent to which each of the competing alternatives satisfy the manager\u27s objectives. The multi-objective decision making approach using linguistic approximation was modified to define a methodology for decision making. Operations on two farms with different urgency levels were used to illustrate the behaviour of the model under different situations;A fuzzy logic based program in the C computer language was developed to assist in deciding whether or not to carry out tillage operations on a given day. The decision procedure accounts for factors like soil moisture content, urgency of the operation, weather forecast, and importance of the operation. The program was evaluated using weather forecast data collected daily for a cropping season and the decisions made by the managers of two farms on whether or not to carry out tillage operations. The proportion of the total number of days compared on which the results were in agreement with the two managers were 0.75 for one with a relatively small and compact farm and 0.45 for the other, whose operation was distributed and relatively large

Legislative Expansion and Judicial Confusion: Uncertain Trajectories of the Death Penalty in India

The numbers and the politics of the death penalty in India tell very different stories, presenting complicated narratives for its future. The public reaction to instances of sexual violence and other offences over the last decade and the consequent political response has significantly strengthened the retention and expansion of the death penalty. This is reflected from the fact that that of all the death sentences that district courts impose, only about 5 per cent get confirmed in India’s appellate system. However, does this mean there is growing scepticism about the death penalty in the Supreme Court of India? Unfortunately, the answer is far from simple. An assessment of the death penalty in India’s appellate courts during the last decade will demonstrate that a crime-centric approach has hindered any principled discomfort with the death penalty or the manner of its administration. In particular, the Supreme Court has faltered in high-profile death sentence cases (i.e., offences against the state and sexual violence cases), and its track record of commutations has very little to do with principled considerations on sentencing. This paper argues that the political and judicial imagination of the death penalty, as a necessary part of the response to crime, creates significant and unique challenges for the path towards abolition

Social impact and women empowerment through mussel farming in Kerala, India

Mussel farming has gained popularity along the southwest coast of India with more than 3,000 women becoming owners of mussel farms. Vasanth Kripa and Vazhoor Gopalan Surendranathan show how training alone was not sufficient to motivate villagers to adopt a new technology; instead visual observations of the success of the technology are essential for removing the risk aversion attitude. Support from the government prompted women to form self-help groups. This led to group farming, which helped women overcome social inhibitions and prove their competence