Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Examining The Externalities Of Highway Capacity Expansions In California: An Analysis Of Land Use And Land Cover (Lulc) Using Remote Sensing Technology, Serena E. Alexander, Bo Yang, Owen Hussey, Derek Hicks

Mineta Transportation Institute

There are over 590,000 bridges dispersed across the roadway network that stretches across the United States alone. Each bridge with a length of 20 feet or greater must be inspected at least once every 24 months, according to the Federal Highway Act (FHWA) of 1968. This research developed an artificial intelligence (AI)-based framework for bridge and road inspection using drones with multiple sensors collecting capabilities. It is not sufficient to conduct inspections of bridges and roads using cameras alone, so the research team utilized an infrared (IR) camera along with a high-resolution optical camera. In many instances, the IR camera …

Broadband Equity, Access, And Deployment In Nevada, Brad Wimmer

Policy Briefs and Reports

The $45.45 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program’s primary objective is to extend broadband service to all unserved and underserved locations in the U.S. and its territories. Several industry studies predict that the BEAD program can meet its goal of providing universal access to broadband service if eligible entities execute their grant programs well. My review of the BEAD program indicates that policy makers can enhance the likelihood of program success by designing competitive grant programs that give applicants the incentive to undercut the subsidies proposed by their rivals and provide applicants the flexibility to design networks that …

Strengthening Brain Research In Africa, Abdullahi Tunde Aborode, Nike Jesutofunmi Idowu, Samuel Tundealao, Joseph Jaiyeola, Ogunware Adedayo Emmanuel

Chemistry Department: Faculty Publications

This paper explores the emerging field of neuroscience in Africa, considering the unique genetic diversity, sociocultural determinants, and health inequalities in the continent. It presents numerous brain research initiatives, such as ABDRN, AMARI, APCDR, and H3Africa, aimed at understanding genetic and environmental factors influencing brain disorders in Africa. Despite numerous challenges like the brain drain phenomenon, inadequate infrastructure, and scarce research expertise, significant progress has been achieved. The paper proposes solutions, including international collaboration, capacity-building efforts, and policies to promote neuroscience research, to enhance the understanding of brain function and address brain-related health issues within the African context.

Fintech Data Infrastructure For Esg Disclosure Compliance, Randall E. Duran, Peter Tierney

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Regulations related to the disclosure of environmental, governance, and social (ESG) factors are evolving rapidly and are a major concern for financial compliance worldwide. Information technology has the potential to reduce the effort and cost of ESG disclosure compliance. However, comprehensive and accurate ESG data are necessary for disclosures. Currently, the availability and quality of underlying data for ESG disclosures vary widely and are often deficient. The process involved with obtaining ESG data is also often inefficient and prone to error. This paper compares the models used and the evolution of Fintech data infrastructure developed to support financial services with …

Future Trends And Directions For Secure Infrastructure Architecture In The Education Sector: A Systematic Review Of Recent Evidence, Isaac Atta Senior Ampofo, Isaac Atta Junior Ampofo

Journal of Research Initiatives

The most efficient approach to giving large numbers of students’ access to computational resources is through a data center. A contemporary method for building the data center's computer infrastructure is the software-defined model, which enables user tasks to be processed in a reasonable amount of time and at a reasonable cost. The researcher examines potential directions and trends for a secured infrastructure design in this article. Additionally, interoperable, highly reusable modules that can include the newest trends in the education industry are made possible by cloud-based educational software. The Reference Architecture for University Education System Using AWS Services is presented …

Public-Ish, Aliah Werth

Masters Theses

Climate change affects public space, and architecture must establish tenets that prioritize pedestrians in this difficult era. Greywater re-use can be a mechanism for creating shade, and in turn, public space.

As heat waves grow more intense, the vast swaths of asphalt that connect commercial zones pose greater risks to public health and to urban vitality. This thesis records the typical material, spatial, and lived conditions of strip malls in urban heat islands, and demands more from infrastructure in public-ish space.

Heat violence weaves through Los Angeles’ built form. Parking space minimums, required setbacks, and height restrictions pull buildings away …

Climate Change And The Law Of National Security Adaptation, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

The Department of Defense (DoD) is the largest employer in the world, owns and operates an enormous global real estate portfolio, and emits more Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) than many nations. Entrusted with the national security, the DoD is now threatened by a new enemy—climate change. Climate change imperils national security infrastructure while undermining the military’s capacity to respond to climate-driven disasters at home and abroad. However, legal scholarship has yet to address what I call “the law of national security adaptation” and related questions. For example, how do environmental and climate change laws apply to the U.S. military? What laws …

Governing Smart Cities As Knowledge Commons - Introduction, Chapter 1 & Conclusion, Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison, Madelyn Sanfilippo

Book Chapters

Smart city technology has its value and its place; it isn’t automatically or universally harmful. Urban challenges and opportunities addressed via smart technology demand systematic study, examining general patterns and local variations as smart city practices unfold around the world. Smart cities are complex blends of community governance institutions, social dilemmas that cities face, and dynamic relationships among information and data, technology, and human lives. Some of those blends are more typical and common. Some are more nuanced in specific contexts. This volume uses the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework to sort out relevant and important distinctions. The framework grounds …

Assessing The Knowledge On Sustainability And Barriers To Daily Sustainable Practices Among Faculty And Students In Higher Education: The Case Of Eastern Illinois University, Joel Edem Holison

Masters Theses

The concept of sustainable development gained prominence with the publication of the Brundtland Report, which emphasized economic progress without jeopardizing future generations' well-being. Following that, the Education for Sustainability (EfS) program was created by the United Nations to raise sustainability awareness. However, the transition to sustainable living is fraught with difficulties, including a lack of knowledge, financial constraints, infrastructure gaps, and political ideologies. This study focuses on sustainable practices among Eastern Illinois University (EIU) students and faculty, as well as the barriers to daily sustainable behaviors. As independent variables influencing sustainable practices, the study evaluates sustainability knowledge/awareness, personal financial situation, …

Negotiating Infrastructural Citizenship Beyond The State: Philanthropy, Non-Profit Organizations, And The Flint Water Crisis, Melissa Heil

Faculty Publications-- Geography, Geology, and the Environment

The urban infrastructure literature has explored how infrastructure is tied to the politics of citizenship: states’ use of infrastructure to include/exclude populations and marginalized populations’ use of infrastructure to claim fuller citizenship. Often, this literature focuses on the relationship between governments and city dwellers, neglecting the role of other actors, like NGOs and philanthropic organizations, that influence infrastructural citizenship. A hallmark of neoliberalism in the Global North has been the transfer of responsibilities from the state to the non-profit sector, increasing these organizations’ power to shape urban citizenship. This paper examines how non-profit organizations participate in the politics of infrastructural …

Cloud Container Security’ Next Move, Vishakha Sadhwani

Dissertations and Theses

In the last few years, it is apparent to cybersecurity experts everywhere that the proverbial container tech genie is out of the bottle, and has been widely embraced across multiple organizations. To achieve the flexibility of building and deploying applications anywhere and everywhere, cloud native environments have gained great momentum and made the development lifecycle simpler than ever. However, container environments brings with them a range of cybersecurity issues that includes images, containers, hosts, runtimes, registries, and orchestration platforms, which needs the necessity to focus on investing in securing your container stack.

According to this report[1], released by cloud-native …

Rural America Is Still Technologically Behind: Why It Matters Now More Than Ever, Paul Force-Emery Mackie

Social Work Department Publications

No abstract provided.

Debris Of Progress: A Political Ethnography Of Critical Infrastructure, Ethan Tupelo

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I advance a political ethnography of critical infrastructure to better understand terminal capitalism, in which the waste products of commodification and resource depletion are destroying the ecological systems that support life. My object of study is the massive disjuncture between individual knowledge and intention, and these catastrophic collective planetary outcomes. Theoretically, I develop critical infrastructure theory to diagnose these destructive structures. By “infrastructure,” I mean systems of material and discursive flows fundamental to sedentary human organization, connecting local actions with global systems. Such infrastructure is “critical” in three senses: A) denoting the most important forms of infrastructure …

Development Of Software Tools For Efficient And Sustainable Process Development And Improvement, Jake P. Stengel

Theses and Dissertations

Infrastructure is a key component in the well-being of our society that leads to its growth, development, and productive operations. A well-built infrastructure allows the community to be more competitive and promotes economic advancement. In 2021, the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) ranked the American infrastructure as substandard, with an overall grade of C-. The overall ranking suffers when key infrastructure categories are not maintained according to the needs of the population. Therefore, there is a need to consider alternative methods to improve our infrastructure and make it more sustainable to enhance the overall grade. One of the challenges …

Accountable Data: The Politics And Pragmatics Of Disclosure Datasets, Lindsay Poirier

Statistical and Data Sciences: Faculty Publications

This paper attends specifically to what I call "disclosure datasets"- tabular datasets produced in accordance with laws requiring various kinds of disclosure. For the purposes of this paper, the most significant defining feature of disclosure datasets is that they aggregate information produced and reported by the same institutions they are meant to hold accountable. Through a series of case studies of disclosure datasets in the United States, I specifically draw attention to two concerns with disclosure datasets: First, for disclosure datasets, there is often political and social mobilization around the definitions that determine reporting thresholds, which in turn implicates what …

Sewage And Pathogen Contamination In Urban Streams In Schenectady In The Lower Mohawk Watershed, Joanna Wright

Honors Theses

Urban streams are becoming increasingly polluted by anthropogenic activity, and in Schenectady (NY) two primary stressors include poor wastewater infrastructure and road salt use. Urban streams in Schenectady include Mill Creek and Cowhorn Creek that empty into the Binnekill (feeder to the Mohawk), and the Hans Groot Kill that empty directly into the Mohawk River. These streams were sampled to evaluate water quality and analyzed for pathogens. This study is primarily focused on fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) Enterococcus, which is an EPA-approved method of determining surface water quality and it is an established indicator of sewage in waterways. The average …

Evaluation Of Sustainability Determinants To Develop A Sustainability Rating System For California Infrastructure Construction Projects, Joseph Kim, Patricia Mccarthy

Mineta Transportation Institute

This study evaluates the important sustainability determinants that affect factors’ success in meeting their sustainability goals when conducting infrastructure construction projects in California. The study implemented the online survey method to evaluate the sustainability characteristics that infrastructure industry professionals currently are aware of under the current situation in California. A data set of 25 validated survey responses is used for statistical data analysis using analysis of variables, Kruskal-Wallis tests, and two sample t-tests. The analysis results showed that the median response values for the six major sustainability categories do not show any significant difference. The results also showed that no …

Sandworms And Computer Worms: An Assessment Of American Critical Infrastructure Cyber Vulnerabilities And The Russian Federation's Growing Offensive Capabilities, Spencer Johns

Honors Theses

Bottom Line Up Front: It is highly likely that the Russian GRU has the capability, resources, and intent to execute cyberweapon attacks against American critical infrastructure in times of heightened tensions, either as a warning or a first strike. I also assess that much of current American critical infrastructure is not secure enough to withstand a coordinated assault by the GRU, and very likely has numerous severe vulnerabilities known by the GRU.

Ecosystem Duties, Green Infrastructure, And Environmental Injustice In Los Angeles, Sayd Randle

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

In Los Angeles, water managers and environmentalist NGOs champion green infrastructure retrofits, installations intended to maximize the water-absorbing capacity of the urban landscape. In such arrangements, the work of water management is necessarily spread among a more-than-human community, including (but certainly not limited to) humans, plants, soils, and gravels. This article analyzes the human labor within these collaborations, tracking when and how this work gets enrolled in networks of water management and circuits of value. I develop the term ecosystem duties to characterize these exertions and as a useful analytic for assessing emergent dynamics of environmental justice.

Biking In Indianapolis: An Ethnographic Analysis Of Obstacles And Solutions, Emory Lietz

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Indiana is known as the ""Crossroads of America"" for its historic investment in vehicle infrastructure. This focus on automobiles has shaped Indianapolis's urban landscape, to the dismay of many cyclists. Based on semi-structured interviews with a range of stakeholders in the Indianapolis cycling community, including urban planners, bike commuters, IndyGo employees, city government officials, and bike advocates, this project identifies and evaluates the current barriers that prevent Indianapolis residents from riding their bikes. These obstacles, which include infrastructural, safety, and social factors, make it more difficult than it ought to be to bike in Indy.

For my thesis project, I …

Municipal Solutions To Climate Change ; A Case Study Of Stream Daylighting In Suffolk County, New York, Madison Hrysko

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

During the 1950’s and 1960’s Suffolk County, New York experienced rapid urbanization and development. To pave way for infrastructure, hydrological modifications were made to the land including the burial of naturally flowing streams. Daylighting streams is the nature-based process of bringing buried streams back to the surface. In turn, restoring ecosystem services, increasing local resilience to climate change impacts, and expanding biodiversity. Minimal research has been done using GIS technology alongside a set of criteria to select best fit streams for daylighting. This thesis aims to fill that gap by identifying best and second-best fit streams for daylighting in Suffolk …

Electric Vehicle Integration In San Francisco, Lisa Farmos

Master's Projects and Capstones

California’s Executive Order N-79-20 requires all new cars and passenger trucks sold in California to be zero-emissions by 2035. Electric vehicles (EVs) are the primary alternative fuel solution. However, there are widespread barriers to ownership, particularly for those in lower socioeconomic classes. A literature review of barriers to EV ownership shows the primary barrier is insufficient overnight charging infrastructure. Geospatial data of EV charging infrastructure and 2020 census tract data were used to map average income versus EV charging infrastructure in San Francisco. Data maps confirm the literature review findings: there is a positive correlation between income and EV charging …

Understanding The Multiple Small Magnitude Induced Seismic Soil Fatigue Potential On Hazard Assessments, Merissa L. Zuzulock, Oliver Denzil S. Taylor, Norbert H. Maerz

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Soils under spacio-temporally clustered events loading are susceptible to soil fatigue as pore pressure dissipates and the soil is unable to recover. This potential for damage from soil fatigue is identified through an induced seismic fatigue equation provided in this paper. The objective of this paper is to present an induced seimic equation for soils under spacio-temporally clustered impulse loading to identify potential hazards to the subsurface that supports critical infrastructure. It further illustrates the use of the equation as determined from a comparison of three varying soil profiles with resulting data that shows a need to establish new critieria …

Cognizant Composites: Seamless Integration Of Circuitry And Sensors Into Structural Composites, Reuben Fresquez

Computer Science ETDs

This thesis describes a set of novel techniques for embedding sensors, circuitry, and electronics into structural composites. I leverage recent developments in human computer interaction to create sensors and circuitry that are seamlessly incorporated into structural composites. I fabricate bend and compression sensors, along with circuitry, from textiles, which enables me to add electronic capabilities without impacting the composite’s structural integrity. I describe the construction of these “cognizant composites” and demonstrate their functionality. I also explore techniques for embedding standard electronic components, including microcontrollers, into structural composites. Potential applications of this technology include buildings that can warn occupants if load-bearing …

Battling Over Bathwater: Greywater Technopolitics In Los Angeles, Sayd Randle

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

In Los Angeles, domestic wastewater recycling ("greywater") systems are controversial, loved by local environmentalists and disdained by the city's water agencies. Drawing on fieldwork among greywater advocates and public water agency workers, this article examines how greywater systems function as nodes that unsettle relations between residents and the public agencies that manage the city's water grid. Elaborating the longstanding frictions over greywater reuse in LA reveals how these fixtures are mobilized by advocates to rescript the roles of both individuals and the state within the urban waterscape. Detailing public agency workers' resistance to this form of selective disconnection from the …

Digital Twin Technology Applications For Transportation Infrastructure - A Survey-Based Study, Hector Cruz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In the past couple of decades, various industries have taken advantage of emerging advanced technologies, such as digital twin (DT), to find more effective solutions in their respective areas. In the transportation infrastructure sector, the concept and implementation of DT technologies are slowly gaining traction but lagging behind other major industries. To better understand the limitations, opportunities and challenges for the adoption of DT in this sector, a survey questionnaire was distributed to collect information from industry professionals involved in transportation infrastructure projects. The purpose of this study is to understand how DT technology is being perceived by the industry. …

Vignette 16: Vulnerability And Climate Change Adaptation, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe

Institute Publications

The 2013 Jamestown Climate Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Plan provides an assessment of vulnerabilities of tribal resources to the negative impacts of climate change. The plan also identifies adaptation measures that the tribe is working to complete. Sea level rise, ocean acidification and climate models show potential for increased risks to critical habitats, tribal infrastructure and tribal health. As one of the first tribes in western Washington to complete a climate adaptation plan and vulnerability assessment, the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe has identified and prioritized areas where changing climate conditions will leave tribal resources, infrastructure, economy and health most vulnerable, Climate …

Bedrock To Buildings, Bryer Carlson

Michael D. Wilson Symposium

This poster explores Maine's bedrock in relation to the state's infrastructure.

The Transformation Process From In-Campus Classes Into Online Classes Due To Covid-19 Pandemic Situation - The Case Of Higher Education Institutions In Kosovo, Erëza Baftiu

Theses and Dissertations

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused many drastic changes in terms of traditional teaching. All the Universities of Kosovo have found the transition from teaching in class, to online classes quite challenging. Consequently, most Universities were not prepared for this adjustment and a lot of the universities before the pandemic stated that they never thought that this time would come and they would pause from classroom teaching. This study investigates the transformation of Higher Education Institution (HEI) of Kosovo from in-campus classes into online classes due to COVID-19 pandemic. Data collections were gathered from workshop and interview, resulting into qualitative data. …

The Formation Of Aufeis And Its Impact On Infrastructure Around Ulaanbaatar, North-Central Mongolia, Michael Walther, Vanchindorj Batsaikhan, Avirmed Dashtseren, Yamkhin Jambaljav, Khurelbaatar Temujin, Ganbold Ulanbayar, Ulrich Kamp

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

In this study aufeis features and their formation under natural conditions and in an urban surrounding in north-central Mongolia were investigated. Used methods included field observations, Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) as well as analyses of satellite imagery and meteorological data. Aufeis formation is related to streams, springs, and ground conditions, particularly soil moisture; the formation of both spring aufeis and river aufeis follows a seasonal cycle. The meteorological data from 1969 to 2018 indicate that the mean annual air temperature (MAAT) increased by 2.6 °C, whilst no significant changes were observed for precipitation. Between 1992 and 2018, aufeis areas significantly …