Remember the Fillmore: The Lingering History of Urban Renewal in Black San Francisco

In the summer of 2008, I moved to San Francisco, California. I lived in the city for three months. As a researcher, my objective was to learn more about Mayor Gavin Newsome’s African-American Out-Migration Task Force. The Task Force convened in 2007 and met eight times from August to December. In 2009, the Mayor\u27s office released a final report on the Redevelopment Agency\u27s website that summarized the history of blacks in the city and outlined several recommendations for reversing their flight. The final report found that the political, economic, and social conditions of African-Americans are disproportionately more dire than any other group in San Francisco. During our conversations, some task force members suggested that this dire condition could be due to the lack of a black middle-class, which could act as a “connective tissue” between San Francisco’s poor black community and the city’s decision makers. The Task Force reported that although blacks had been in San Francisco for decades, many African-Americans, especially poor blacks, often felt disconnected from much of the city life. That finding resonated with what I heard during my interviews with the middle- to upper-middle class African-American members of the Task Force and with my observations of how residents and visitors shared public space in the Fillmore neighborhood, one of the city’s historically black neighborhoods. [excerpt

Strain and temperature sensors using multimode optical fiber Bragg gratings and correlation signal processing

Multimode fiber optic Bragg grating sensors for strain and temperature measurements using correlation signal processing methods have been developed. Two multimode Bragg grating sensors were fabricated in 62/125 m graded-index silica multimode fiber; the first sensor was produced by the holographic method and the second sensor by the phase mask technique. The sensors have signal reflectivity of approximately 35% at peak wavelengths of 835 nm and 859 nm, respectively. Strain testing of both sensors has been done from 0 to 1000 με and the temperature testing from 40 to 80°C. Strain and temperature sensitivity values are 0.55 pm/με and 6 pm/°C, respectively. The sensors are being applied in a power-by-light hydraulic valve monitoring system

A new wine tasting approach based on emotional responses to rapidly recognize classic european wine styles

Conventional tasting sheets are widely used to evaluate wine quality in wine tasting competitions. However, the higher scores are mostly obtained by international commercial wines, resulting in lower scores being awarded to the classic Europeanwines. We hypothesize that this is due to the tasting methodology that fails to recognize this wine style. Therefore, the purpose of this work was to show the implementation of a new wine tasting approach to overcome this drawback. The proposed training technique is based on the emotional responses of the taster after smelling two wines of clearly opposite styles. The first wine is characterized by high aromatic intensity but low in-mouth intensity, perceived as disappointing to the taster, here defined as an “easy” wine. The second wine is characterized as a wine with low aromatic intensity but that provides an unexpectedly positive in-mouth experience, here defined as a “difficult” wine. These emotions are explained by the wine sensorial characteristics. The “easy” wine has an intense, simple smell with short persistence while the “difficult” wine has a low intensity, complex aroma, and long persistence. The first style corresponds to the international commercial wines most prized in international wine challenges. The second, frequently rejected by untrained tasters, is consistent with the “so called” classic European wines, and is characterized by light red or yellow straw colors, weak smell intensity, and aggressive mouth-feel. After no more than four training sessions and using the OIV tasting sheet, inexperienced tasters were able to score “difficult” wines equally as “easy” wines and understand their different attributes. In conclusion, this new tasting approach may be used by wine professionals to explain the characteristics of high quality wines that are not easily recognized by untrained consumersinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Organic Upland Beef and Sheep Production

The technical guide addresses the issues relevant to the organic beef and sheep sector, acknowledging the questions that are frequently directed to the technical ‘Helpline’ of Organic Centre Wales. It draws on the experience of the ADAS Research Farm at Pwllpeiran and is intended as a guide for those with an interest in organic beef and sheep production production. This guide is in three interrelated parts. The first part deals primarily with technical issues of grassland and beef and sheep management, and provides practical information for farmers on key factors influencing the performance of the system. The upland organic unit at ADAS Pwllpeiran in mid-Wales was set up in 1993 to examine the feasibility of organic beef and sheep production in the hill situation. The organic unit at Pwllpeiran ADAS research farm located in the Cambrian Mountains Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) of mid-Wales has 237.5 ha, of which 111 ha achieved full organic status in 1995 and a further 126 ha was added in 2004. There is a suckler herd of Welsh Black cows and a breeding flock of Hardy Speckled Face ewes and Texel crosses. Annual average rainfal at 300 metres was 1765 mm, compared to over 2500 mm at 550 metres. Between 1993 and 2001, work focused on the feasibility of organic livestock production in the hills. With EAGGF Objective 5b funding, the unit was compared with the rest of the farm in terms of grassland productivity, livestock and financial per formance. Since 2001, the focus has been on key problems for organic upland farmers, particularly livestock health and welfare. Methods of internal and ectoparasite control, feeding to organic standards and maintaining the quality of forage by reseeding upland pastures have been investigated. Part 2 is a review of the financial performance of organic beef and sheep farming in Wales, provided by Andrew Jackson, of the Institute of Rural Sciences, University of Wales Aberystwyth. It is based mainly on two DEFRA funded studies: • Data for organic farms extracted from the main Farm Business Survey in Wales • A four year project focusing specifically on organic farms, drawing on all Farm Business Survey data collected for organic farms across England and Wales as well as independently collected data. From these data, it is possible to derive whole farm income data, gross margin and cost of production data to give an overview of the economics of organic dairy farming in Wales for the latest recorded financial periods (2004/05) The third and final part consists of 2 farmer case studies, which put many of the issues discussed in parts 1 and 2 in the context of individual farm businesses. We are grateful for the co-operation of Blaen y Nant and Cannon Farm

Robotic and automatic welding development at the Marshall Space Flight Center

Welding automation is the key to two major development programs to improve quality and reduce the cost of manufacturing space hardware currently undertaken by the Materials and Processes Laboratory of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. Variable polarity plasma arc welding has demonstrated its effectiveness on class 1 aluminum welding in external tank production. More than three miles of welds were completed without an internal defect. Much of this success can be credited to automation developments which stabilize the process. Robotic manipulation technology is under development for automation of welds on the Space Shuttle's main engines utilizing pathfinder systems in development of tooling and sensors for the production applications. The overall approach to welding automation development undertaken is outlined. Advanced sensors and control systems methodologies are described that combine to make aerospace quality welds with a minimum of dependence on operator skill

An explicit mapping between the frequency domain and the time domain representations of nonlinear systems

Explicit expressions are presented that describe the input-output behaviour of a nonlinear system in both the frequency and the time domain. The expressions are based on a set of coefficients that do not depend on the input to the system and are universal for a given system. The anharmonic oscillator is chosen as an example and is discussed for different choices of its physical parameters. It is shown that the typical approach for the determination of the Volterra Series representation is not valid for the important case when the nonlinear system exhibits oscillatory behaviour and the input has a pole at the origin (in the frequency domain), e.g. the unit-step function. For this case, resonant effects arise and the analysis requires additional care.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures, .pd

Facing up to the challenge of behavioural observation in infant hearing assessment

The ability to assess detection and discrimination of speech by infants has proved elusive. Dr Iain Jackson and colleagues discuss how new technologies and fresh approaches might offer valuable insight into young infants’ behavioural responses to sound