The Bias of Neutrality: An Examination of a Congressman\u27s Motivations on the Issue of Network Neutrality

The United States Congress is an institution that, especially in recent times, is continuously faced with more modern and complex problems. The political dilemma surrounding the issue of network neutrality is a perfect example of a highly complex and technical problem that members of Congress have been forced to think about and act on. Because use of the Internet has now been almost entirely integrated into American society, with nearly 80% of the U.S. population connected in one way or another, the Internet\u27s priority as a subject of legislation has seen a meteoric rise in Congress (data.worldbank.org; opencongress.org). In fact, many representatives in Congress have taken a firm position with regard to how they approach regulation and the Internet, though these positions can be a bit complicated because of the convoluted nature of the free internet arguments. This essay will narrow down the issue and look specifically at Representative Gary Miller\u27s stance on net neutrality, examining how party affiliation, district interests, and fundraising needs have influenced the Congressman\u27s position on the subject

How to Create an ASCII Input Data File for UniODA and CTA Software

UniODA and CTA software require an ASCII (unformatted text) file as input data. Arguably the most difficult task an operator faces in conducting analyses is converting the original data file from (a) whatever software package was used to enter the data, into (b) an ASCII file for analysis. This article first highlights critical issues concerning missing data, variable labels, and variable types that users must address in order to convert their data into an ASCII file for analysis using ODA software. Specific steps needed to convert a data set from its original file-type into a space-delimited ASCII file are then discussed. The process of converting data into ASCII files for use as input data is illustrated for three leading statistical software packages: SPSS, SAS, and STATISTICA

Expanding the capabilities of the ELVIS iLab using component switching

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (p. 63).iLabs are online laboratories that allow users to access, control, and perform real experiments remotely through the Internet. Users are able to access laboratory experiments whenever and wherever they want, bypassing the problem of acquiring expensive equipment and waiting in long queues to use the equipment. iLabs allow students to complement their theoretical calculations and results with real data, providing them with a better understanding of engineering concepts. The ELVIS iLab was developed using the National Instruments Educational Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Suite, a low cost, all-in-one electronics workstation that can be software controlled. ELVIS iLab is currently in the second version and this thesis explains the modifications made to the first version to add an additional power supply and switching capabilities. These changes increase the quantity, flexibility, and variety of experiments that can be created and provides the possibility of more challenging assignments for students. It also facilitates easier sharing between courses and institutions.by Bryant J. Harrison.M.Eng

Uber

Uber focuses primarily on the ride-hailing industry, which puts the company in direct competition with regular taxis. The company is like a lot of tech-driven, fast growing entrepreneurial firms in that it still struggles for profitability. Also, the popularity of this new form of transportation has put the company and its close competitors, such as Lyft, in the spotlight of government lawmakers and regulators. If they classify Uber drivers as employees rather than independent contractors, it could dramatically alter the Uber business model. This case is written in the aftermath of the ouster of one of the company’s co-founders as CEO, a not-so-successful initial public offering (IPO), and some very serious human resources issues associated with widely publicized instances of sexual harassment and mistreatment of drivers

Ball pen probe in strongly magnetised RF plasmas

A study of ball pen probes (BPPs) in a rf strongly magnetised plasma is reported for the first time. These probes have been successfully used in fusion plasmas, with magnetic fields up to 2.5 T, to measure the plasma potential. In this paper experimental results of various ball pen designs (2 and 4 mm diameter with flat and conical collectors) are presented up to 0.5 T in a low pressure capacitively coupled rf plasma. A theory of the BPP is developed, showing that the increase of the collector potential and plateau region, with collector retraction, requires the electron current to decrease faster than the ion current. Experimentally, it is found that to develop effective electron screening the electron Larmor radius should be smaller than the tunnel internal diameter. Smaller tunnels improve screening due to the tunnel entrance wall sheaths. Inside the tunnel a plateau region forms at 81 mT reducing to a broad peak at higher field strengths. Ion shielding and surface losses (for small tunnel diameters) reduce the collector peak width and maximum potential with increasing magnetic field. Conical collectors were found to increase the length of the plateau region and broaden the peak. Particle in cell simulations were in good agreement with the experimental results. The electron shielding and plateau regions were reproduced but not the broad peak at higher field strengths. Good agreement between both 2 mm BPPs and an emissive probe was found only at 81 mT to within 3 V or 1.3 electron temperatures (T e). For all BPPs at higher field strengths (≥ 250 mT) the maximum collector potential underestimated the emissive probe by more than 2.7 T e (7 V). At these field strengths all BPPs agree with each other to within 1.5 T e (4.1 V). Possible reasons for these disagreements are discussed

Contact Integrable Extensions of Symmetry Pseudo-Group and Coverings of the r-th Modified Dispersionless Kadomtsev -- Petviashvili Equation

We apply the technique of integrable extensions to the symmetry pseudo-group of the r-th mdKP equation. This gives another look on deriving known coverings and allows us to find new coverings for this equation

Collaborative development of remote electronics laboratories in the ELVIS ilab

Remote laboratories represent a significant value to engineering curricula in a variety of cases. Whether it is a complement to a hands-on experience or a substitute when a traditional lab is not feasible, remote laboratories can be a valuable educational resource. Since 1998, the MIT iLab Project has worked to increase the quality and availability of remote laboratories. Using the iLab Shared Architecture, developers of new labs can leverage a set of generic support functions and then share those labs easily and with minimal administrative cost. More recently, the iLab Project, in partnership with Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria, Makerere University in Uganda and the University of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania and in coordination with the Maricopa Advanced Technology Education Center (MATEC), has focused on building iLabs around the National Instruments Educational Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Suite (ELVIS) platform. The ELVIS is a low-cost, small-footprint unit that contains most of the common test instruments found in a typical electrical engineering lab. By coupling the ELVIS with iLabs, a variety of remote electronics laboratories can be built and shared around the world. Using this common hardware/software platform, participants in the iLab Project at different levels of the educational spectrum have developed experiments that meet their individual curricular needs and are able to host them for use by other peer institutions. Not only does this increase the variety of ELVISbased iLabs, but it also spurs the creation of teams that can then build other, more diverse iLabs and substantively participate in project-wide collaborative development efforts. Through such coordinated efforts, iLabs can provide rich practical experiences for studentsMaricopa County Community College District. Maricopa Advanced Technology Education CenterCarnegie Corporation of New YorkMicrosoft CorporationNational Science Foundation (U.S.) (award 0702735)Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Cente

Conservation laws for vacuum tetrad gravity

Ten conservation laws in useful polynomial form are derived from a Cartan form and Exterior Differential System (EDS) for the tetrad equations of vacuum relativity. The Noether construction of conservation laws for well posed EDS is introduced first, and an illustration given, deriving 15 conservation laws of the free field Maxwell Equations from symmetries of its EDS. The Maxwell EDS and tetrad gravity EDS have parallel structures, with their numbers of dependent variables, numbers of generating 2-forms and generating 3-forms, and Cartan character tables all in the ratio of 1 to 4. They have 10 corresponding symmetries with the same Lorentz algebra, and 10 corresponding conservation laws.Comment: Final version with additional reference