Belonging While Black at Lake Merritt: The Black Spatial Imaginary and Place-Making in Oakland, CA

This thesis aims to demonstrate how the processes of gentrification and displacement are interrelated processes that invent new ways of perpetuating anti- blackness in the U.S. I demonstrate this through an engagement with Christina Sharpe’s (2016) analysis of the imagery of the wake, the ship, the hold, and the weather as axis points that position Black life in the afterlife of slavery—how the conditions of slavery are ongoing today—presenting the racist encounters at Lake Merritt as illustrative examples. In her most recent book, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, Sharpe (2016) deploys an interdisciplinary approach to critically theorize Black subjection and grief through a Black feminist framework, offering care, or what she terms “wake work” as an anecdote to state-sanctioned anti-black violence. She turns to poetry, film, historical archives, and intimate personal experiences to thoroughly articulate how the past is not passed; I reveal how capitalist logic simultaneously structures media representations of Black people in ways that distort what we signify— monstrosity, threat, and criminal are three examples of this distortion—and fix abstract space in hegemonic spatial imaginaries through privatization and commodification. Most importantly, I turn to art and expression—prominent examples being “BBQ’N While Black” and The Black Spatial Imaginary as a community response to BBQ Becky and serial displacement in Portland, Oregon respectively—as resistance and examples of place-making practices that Black people have been engaged in historically to articulate their self-hood, belonging, and beauty through Black love. I strive to undertake this work with intentionality and care, which necessitates an undisciplined approach as academic disciplines have historically deployed methodologies that construct narratives on Blackness that reproduce colonial and anti-black violence

Theatre & the Environment: Cross-Cultural Exchange Through Travel and Performance Activism

Performance activism, collaborative and cross-cultural, were keys to the success of EnviroLab Asia\u27s clinic trip to Thailand in May 2018. Working with peers in Thai universities, this writer reflects on the degree to which her immersion in local environmental struggles in Thailand, and the compelling theater project that grew out of it, also has helped her understand some of the same pressures that confront her home communities in Africa

Multi-variate seismic demand modelling using copulas:application to non-ductile reinforced concrete frame in Victoria, Canada

AbstractJoint probabilistic characteristics of key structural demand variables due to intense ground shaking are important for quantitative seismic loss estimation. Current damage–loss models require inputs of multiple seismic demand parameters, such as maximum/residual inter-storey drift ratio (ISDR) and peak floor acceleration (PFA). This study extends current seismic demand estimation methods based on incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) by characterising dependence among different engineering demand parameters (EDP) using copulas explicitly. The developed method is applied to a 4-storey non-ductile reinforced concrete (RC) frame in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The developed multi-variate seismic demand model is integrated with a storey-based damage–loss model to assess the economic consequences due to different earthquake loss generation modes (i.e. non-collapse repairs, collapse, and demolition). Results obtained from this study indicate that the effects of multi-variate seismic demand modelling on the expected seismic loss ratios are significant. The critical information is the limit state threshold for demolition. In addition, consideration of a realistic dependence structure of maximum and residual inter-storey drift ratios can be important for seismic loss estimation as well as for multi-criteria seismic performance evaluation

Seismic performance evaluation framework considering maximum and residual inter-story drift ratios:application to non-code conforming reinforced concrete buildings in Victoria, BC, Canada

This paper presents a seismic performance evaluation framework using two engineering demand parameters, i.e. maximum and residual inter-story drift ratios, and with consideration of mainshock-aftershock (MSAS) earthquake sequences. The evaluation is undertaken within a performance-based earthquake engineering framework in which seismic demand limits are defined with respect to the earthquake return period. A set of 2-, 4-, 8-, and 12-story non-ductile reinforced concrete buildings, located in Victoria, British Colombia, Canada, is considered as a case study. Using 50 mainshock and MSAS earthquake records (two horizontal components per record), incremental dynamic analysis is performed, and the joint probability distribution of maximum and residual inter-story drift ratios is modeled using a novel copula technique. The results are assessed both for collapse and non-collapse limit states. From the results, it can be shown that the collapse assessment of 4- to 12-story buildings is not sensitive to the consideration of MSAS seismic input, whereas for the 2-story building, a 13% difference in the median collapse capacity is caused by the MSAS. For unconditional probability of unsatisfactory seismic performance, which accounts for both collapse and non-collapse limit states, the life safety performance objective is achieved, but it fails to satisfy the collapse prevention performance objective. The results highlight the need for the consideration of seismic retrofitting for the non-ductile reinforced concrete structures

STR-957: EFFECTS OF CLT-INFILL WALLS ON THE COLLAPSE BEHAVIOR OF STEEL MOMENT RESISTING FRAMES

Over the past six years, to increase the use of renewable materials in the construction industry, a novel steel-timber hybrid building system was developed and studied at the University of British Columbia and FPInnovations. The hybrid structural system was a steel moment resisting frames (SMRFs) with Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) infill walls. These studies were mainly on developing: novel connection types, new constitutive laws for the CLT walls, and force-based and displacement-based design guidelines. The effect of CLT infills on the collapse risk of the SMRFs was not explicitly investigated, and is the topic of this paper. With consideration of seismicity of Vancouver (Canada)and using the 2010 National Building Code of Canada (NBCC) force based design guideline, 3- and 6-storey, 3-bay, bare and middle bay CLT-infilled SMRFs, were designed. Nonlinear analytical building models that account for the frame-infill interactions, were developed in the OpenSees finite element tool. L-shaped steel bracket connections were modeled using experimentally calibrated nonlinear two-node-link elements. Moreover, to allow brackets deformation, a small gap was provided at the interface of the steel frame members and CLT infill panels. To assess the collapse behavior and collapse fragility curves, incremental dynamic analysis was performed using 60 ground motion records selected with seismicity of Vancouver. The infill panels have significantly increased the collapse margin ratio, thereby reducing the collapse risk of SMRFs during server earthquake events

INSECTICIDES SOLD IN THE STREETS OF ADDIS ABABA FOR DOMESTIC USE AND THE POSSIBLE PUBLIC HEALTH HAZARD ASSOCIATED WITH THE PRACTICE

ABSTRACTChemical analyses were performed to identify the insecticides sold in the streets of Addis Ababa by peddlers. Parat"'ion, a very toxic substance, and malathion, were identified in a number of the unlabelled liquid samples, while packages of powder bearing the lable "DDT" were confirmed to contain thu insecticide. Thu study assesses the possible hazards resulting from street vendors selling insecticides and living advice on their use and concludes that the practice u hazardous to the public

Investigating the use of condoms among urban high school students in Asmara, Eritrea.

Thesis (M.PH.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2004.No abstract available

Impact of Earthquake Types and Aftershocks on Loss Assessment of Non-Code-Conforming Buildings:Case Study with Victoria, British Columbia

This paper presents a study on the impact of earthquake types (shallow crustal, deep inslab, and megathrust Cascadia interface earthquakes) and aftershocks on loss assessment of non-code-conforming reinforced concrete (RC) buildings. The loss assessment is formulated within the performance-based earthquake engineering framework. The dependency between the maximum and residual inter-story drift ratios are captured using copulas. Finite-element models that take into account key hysteretic characteristics of non-ductile RC frames were adopted and incremental dynamic analysis is utilized to compute collapse risk. The proposed procedure is applied to a set of 2-, 4-, 8-, and 12-story non-ductile reinforced concrete frames located in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. From the results, the aftershock showed marked difference for the 2-story building. At annual probability of 10−2–10−3, crustal and inslab events with Mw6.5 to Mw7.5 contributed the most to the loss as these events occur more frequently. At rarer annual probability of 10−3–10−4, the Cascadia event having Mw8.5 to Mw9.0 is predominant and contributed the most to the loss. </jats:p