Search

I am interested in the Macro scale and the macro effects evident at a city-scale level. I remember visiting New Orleans in 2016 and vividly remember seeing several signs with a large 'No' symbol drawn and the text  "neighbors not tourists" printed on the sign. Recently, as part of my research into New Orleans, I stumbled on this piece by the Guardian on how short-term rentals through platforms such as Airbnb are leading to gentrification in New Orleans. Highlighted in the article is how several Airbnb hosts do not reside on the listed premises. I remember the place we stayed, as we were a large party, having a 617 prefix number.  The prefix stood out as I knew the code 617 represented Boston and was curious what someone with ties to Boston doing in New Orleans as a host. In a similar vein, the article also highlights the problem of absentee hosts, hosts who acquire property for the sole purpose of setting up the property as an Airbnb site.

To tackle the problem, one councilwoman passed a law that required any Airbnb hosts in residential zones to have a homestead exemption verifying they live on site. In this case, a city-wide measure was taken and passed into law affecting the micro. It is common to have one host having several properties in different residential areas in New Orleans. From a technical standpoint, it could be viewed that Airbnb as technology is developed and presented as a scalable product. With no limits to reproducibility. Meanwhile, real-life discontinuities exist in the form of such homestead laws. It is impossible to live in more than one homestead at the same time. In other words, the concept of the human is not scalable.
Likewise, neither is cultural heritage. The city of New Orleans positions its self as a city with great cultural heritage. It is through this heritage that they seek to draw more and more tourists. How do cities think of scaling up successful initiatives and how do they navigate the political, social, ecological, or economic entanglements. At what point is downscaling necessary? Is culture scalable?

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/13/new-orleans-airbnb-trem…

I am currently a Ph.D. student interested in exploring the entanglements of scale, especially in the context of environmental sensing.  My primary research seeks to engage in discourse around the value of scalability that is presented as inherent in computation. While the term scale-up is almost synonymous with computation, sustainability; on the other hand, is known as a problem of scale. Take for example, the discourse on climate change where the actions required to combat climate change requires interventions at different scales. In this context, demanding changes at individual scales while no corresponding changes happen at larger scales would not yield much.

In looking at New Orleans, I came across a video on IoT cameras developed by Cisco, the networking giant. What struck me other than the apparent rise of surveillance capitalism was the narrative of one of the police officers highlighted in the video. The officer mentions that it is not feasible for the city to place police officers on every corner. In the context of scale, the police officer is implying that cameras are useful as they extend the police officer's ability to surveil the city. In other words, cameras and the networks help scale up the police officer, making it possible for them to cover a larger scale than before.

One of the police officers, in the video, also mentions that New Orleans is a tourist and hospitable town. Which brings up the question at any given period, what scale of visitors can New Orleans support without stretching the city's resources? Several other cities in the world have made efforts to limit visitors, in order not stretch city resources. The recent crisis at Mount Everest is an excellent example of what happens when resources are stretched to accommodate the increasing number of local visitors. How could something of this nature similarly impact New Orleans?

At the communication center where the video feed is analyzed, the IT manager provides reasons as to why they chose Cisco as their vendor. One of the reasons he gives was that the system is easily expandable, allowing the ability to scale out/up the network.

This article discussses why Haiti can't "build back better" after the series of disasters that have come its way. The article mentions that Haiti has become reliant upon international contractors as aid when building back because of local and international distrust of the government. This combined with the fact that many public health experts think that the UN is responsible for the cholera outbreak has caused fewer donations, and those donations that are recieved to be used less efficiently.

The data is presented much like on Twitter or Facebook with a timeline showing the most recent information first with a small exerpt of the article and the ability to click on a "read more" button to view the article in full.

I followed up on the FMD in the 1990s in Europe and how they followed up on the side of industrial meat production. I also followed up and did more research on what the term "biosecurity" actually means. Finally, I visited the website for the Center for Strategic and International Studies to figure out what they were all about.

There was a great deal of primary sourcing involved in producing this report. Additionally, the author used other reports and historical papers to build summaries and historical perspectives in this article.

"... when restrictions on residence rights continued to be extended... illness ... opened new avenues and, ambibuously, new hopes." (page 83)

"... the issuing of a diagnosis and a prognosis ... becasme a problem of conscience... bot for the doctor who refused... and for the one who overstated the seriousness of the condition..." (page 97)

"The logic os state sovereignty in the control of immigration clearly prevailed oer the universality of the principle of the right to life." (page 108)

Sonja Schmid, PhD is an associate professor in STS at Virginia Tech's National Capital Region Campus. She specializes in science and technology policy, nuclear emergency response, the nuclear industries in the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Dr. Schmid researches how entities, ranging from local municipalities to nation-states, respond in the event of a nuclear emergency. She is not personally involved in the initial emergency response; however, she researchers previous emergency responses and advises on how to reduce the consequences of nuclear disaster. She is also currently working on an NSF-supported project to  "investigate the challenges of globalizing nuclear emergency response," as a part of which, she organized a monthly speaker series that focuses on research and education related to nuclear emergency response.

All above information sourced from http://www.sts.vt.edu/faculty/sschmid/ unless otherwise noted.

This article argues that when examining the spread of disease, fighting biosocial aspects are as important as fighting the biological aspects. The authors argue that structureal violence, which is introduced by inequality leads to premature death and disability. By "resocializing" we can prevent diseases such as TB and AIDS from staying diseases of the poor.

The App pairs translated annotations with their respective sources in a way for viewers to easily access. This information is used to convey the purpose of the source to others who may not speak the language in which the source is written.