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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 focuses on the fact that there not only biological aspects of disease and the spread of it, but also social factors that need more attention. The article cites that epidemic disease is linked with social conditions such as structural violence, education, income and more. The article addresses the fact that social conditions have an effect on disease prevention and many diseases quickly become diseases of the poor due to this. There are social conditions that effect patient's abilities to defend themselves against disease based off money, social condition, infrastructure, access to food etc. The concept of structural violence and its effects on disease spread within the poor community is discussed and analyzed. Overall, the main point to be driven home is the fact that disease spread can be decreased with the reconfiguration and addressing of social issues. 

Miriam Ticktin is a professor of anthropology and co-director of Zolberg Institute for Migration and Mobility. She has a PhD in social sciences from Stanford and has many recent publications, all focused around immigration and humanitarianism, mainly overseas, as well as social research in these areas.

http://www.newschool.edu/nssr/faculty/?id=4d54-6379-4e44-4d35

The American Red Cross is heavily based off team work and altruism. As stated earlier, those that respond are volunteers, they are not obligated to help but they want to. The Red Cross volunteers work together as a team for the goal of aiding and tending to those in need, to the best of their ability. Their volunteering shows they perceive disaster as an unpredictable thing, but something that other members of the community can help those devastated get through. 

It is said that EMTALA doesn't apply to ambulance services, technically this would be true. Yet, EMTALA does indeed effect our patients, and anything that effects our patients can effect us and should be a concern of ours as EMS providers. If EMTs are spending time in the hospital sorting out insurance issues and payment, that is more time they are out of service. Also, if the patient's treatment time is delayed, not only will the hospital be blamed, but so will EMS. If a patient is in cardiac arrest, EMTs will not be stopping and wasting time to find out insurance and payment issues from family members, that will be the last thought on their mind. They will be transporting and attempting to stabilize the patient. EMTs and EMS will not compromise the health of a patient due to insurance or payment issues, just like hospitals are now mandated to do.

The arguments are supported by citing many studies and past experiences of organizations such as WHO and CDC. Based off the examination of current protocols of biosecurity interventions, it has been deduced that the process is still in formation and not completely settled. There are not "stable" or "clearly defined" understandings or strategies of possible interventions cited by WHO and CDC. This proving the point that there are clear actions that need to be made in terms of protocol development today.The AIDS crisis in the 80s was also used a supporting point for the argument in terms of response to emerging infectious diseases. The main focus of this was the alarm that was caused by science reports, journalists and novelists during that time. The effects this response had can be used today in the possible reformation of threat response now. The policy changes that have been seen in terms of public health and threat safety  were adequately researched and discussed in this paper. Showing the need for a changing system that adapts with time and needs globally.

The funding for this study came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), grant number #5PO1TP000307-05.