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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.

Through the use of surveying, this study identified that there are in fact inequalities in people's understanding of proper responses to pandemic influenza outbreaks. This study helped identify these vulnerable groups, and that social media and forms of mass media are the main ways to reach these groups. To address this vulnerable population, the public needs an increased accessibility to information, overall increasing the public's level of knowledge about the pandemic.

The references show that there was an intense amount of research done by the author. There were a lot of new articles and some studies on disasters in the bibliography. The articles also date back to the times of the actual events, showing an extensive about of work and research on the author's part.

"This delegitimization was not limited to France. When humanitarian reason was introduced into French law in order to protect sick immigrants against the risk of deportation, it was optimistically thought that, under pressure from nongovernmental organizations..the provision would be extended throughout the Union."

"The logic of state sovereignty in the control of immigration clearly prevailed over the universality of the principle of the right to life."

"Should we accept 'getting our hands dirty' by agreeing to work with the immigrants' service of the prefect's office on the difficult issue of deportations?"

The program ideology and purpose is based off preparing students for career paths in "(a) communities that are affected by and vulnerable to disaster destruction and disruption; (b) organizations that focus on all phases of disaster management (preparedness, response, recovery, and risk reduction); and, (c) leadership in organizations and communities that require leadership that promotes resilience."

Students can earn a DRLS Master of Science in 2 years (or a 1 year accelerated) and is made up of 36 credits . Courses required to be taken are centered around leaderhsip analytics and environmental hazards. Students are trained and educated under the 5 core competencies or pillars- Human and social factors, Economics of disaster, Environmental and Infrastructure, disaster operations, measurement and evaluation. The goal is to produce competent practitioners in disaster relief, create partnerships within the academic community and provide leadership, research and evaluation abilities in their students. 

This policy was an expansion of the Social Security Act and other federal social welfare programs that date back to 1950. This policy was created to clear up confusions and set down parameters for how mental health should be addressed under this Act and to define what constitutes an IMD under this policy.