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"Breaks in the Air: The Birth of Rap Radio in New York City" by John Klaess is a significant contribution to the history of New York hip-hop culture. The book explores the early days of rap radio in New York, when stations like WBLS played a crucial role in shaping the sound and culture of hip-hop. Klaess uses interviews and cassette recordings to provide insights into the inseparable relationship between rap, radio, and diverse listening communities. The book also examines the impact of deregulation on the commercial radio industry and the role of radio in advancing Black social progress. Overall, "Breaks in the Air" offers a valuable perspective on the history of rap radio in New York City. [Extracted from the article]

Adam Lowenstein's book, "Horror Film and Otherness," explores the social relevance and transformative power of horror cinema. Lowenstein argues that horror films can teach us about otherness and illuminate the ongoing evolution of social norms and identities. He challenges Robin Wood's analysis of American horror cinema, offering a more nuanced understanding of the genre's exploration of trauma, alienation, and displacement. Lowenstein engages with theorists and historians to examine the themes of aging, the body, gender, and sexuality in horror films from the 1970s to the present. While the book is comprehensive, it lacks coverage of trans people, which would further contribute to the exploration of otherness. Overall, "Horror Film and Otherness" is a landmark text that highlights the importance of horror in understanding society and the self. [Extracted from the article]

Approaching the writing of a scene in this way, the authors argue, makes character motivations clear, creates tension and leaves room for either additional obstacles or resolution. Which points to another fundamental premise that Perry and Sanders believe in, namely that every scene needs to have both a goal and an obstacle. I SceneWriting: The Missing Manual for Screenwriters i by Chris Perry and Eric Henry Sanders is an essential primer on the important foundational structure and elements that make a scene - and by extrapolation, a story - work. [Extracted from the article]

"Black Women and the Changing Television Landscape" by Lisa M. Anderson is a book that examines the portrayal of Black women on television throughout history. Anderson, an associate professor of women and gender studies, builds on her previous work to explore the complex and evolving representations of Black women in media. Using a semiotic approach and drawing on the work of Black feminist scholars, Anderson analyzes specific television shows and personalities from the 1950s to the present. The book goes beyond simplistic judgments and aims to understand the historical and cultural contexts in which these representations exist, as well as the agency of Black women in shaping them. It is a valuable resource for scholars in cultural, media, and television studies. [Extracted from the article]

Recent advances in non-volatile main memory (NVM) technology have spurred research on algorithms that are resilient to intermittent failures that cause processes to crash and subsequently restart. In this paper we present a Recoverable Mutual Exclusion (RME) algorithm that supports abortability. Our algorithm guarantees FCFS and a strong liveness property: processes do not starve even in runs consisting of infinitely many crashes, provided that a process crashes at most a finite number of times in each of its attempts. On DSM and Relaxed-CC multiprocessors, a process incurs O (min (k , log n)) RMRs in a passage and O (f + min (k , log n)) RMRs in an attempt, where n is the number of processes that the algorithm is designed for, k is the point contention of the passage or the attempt, and f is the number of times that p crashes during the attempt. On a Strict CC multiprocessor, the passage and attempt complexities are O(n) and O (f + n) , respectively. Our algorithm uses only the read, write, and CAS operations, which are commonly supported by multiprocessors. Attiya, Hendler, and Woelfel proved that, with any mutual exclusion algorithm, a process incurs at least Ω (log n) RMRs in a passage, if the algorithm uses only the read, write, and CAS operations (in: Proc. of the Fortieth ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, New York, NY, USA, 2008). This lower bound implies that the worst-case RMR complexity of our algorithm is optimal for the DSM and Relaxed CC multiprocessors. This paper is an expanded version of our conference paper as reported by Jayanti and Joshi (in: Atig and Schwarzmann (eds) Networked Systems. Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2019), which presented the first Recoverable Mutual Exclusion (RME) algorithm that supports abortability. This algorithm from our conference paper (in: Atig and Schwarzmann (eds) Networked Systems. Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2019) admits starvation when there are infinitely many aborts in a run. In this paper, we fix this shortcoming and prove the algorithm's properties by identifying an inductive invariant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ceremony Men: Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection: By Jason M. Gibson. The collection in question in Gibson's study is that assembled by linguist and ethnographer T.G.H. ("Ted") Strehlow, now housed at the purpose-built Strehlow Research Centre in Alice Springs. This brings me to the second innovation that Gibson makes in approaching Strehlow's archive: his decision to focus on the work that Strehlow did with the Anmatyerr. [Extracted from the article]

This paper develops the notion of "platform placemaking", describing how platforms mobilize user data to remake urban spatial imaginaries in their interests. Using Airbnb as a case, the paper studies the digital urban culture of "Airbnbification" – examining how Airbnb's reviews and descriptions become part of reshaping urban place, while contributing to the place alienation of long-term residents. Airbnb feeds a surge in urban tourists on the hunt for "real urban experiences": off-the-beaten-track, everyday and mundane urban life, seen as representing something "real" and "authentic". This paper situates Airbnb in the literature on postmodern consumption, and examines the way hosts and guests on Airbnb stage, perform and construct cosmopolitanism and "authentic" urban place to cater to the values of new urban tourism. The paper introduces an approach to studying digital urban culture through platform data, using computational discourse analysis to examine Airbnb in New York City. By linking narratives in reviews and neighborhood descriptions to census data, we examine how authenticity and cosmopolitanism is staged and marketed. The paper argues that Airbnb serves to promote a value system that devalues the cultural and spatial capital of long-term residents, implying that the new tourists' cosmopolitan longing to belong may thus come at the cost of the locals' own sense of belonging. The platform placemaking of Airbnb thus emphasizes urban place as a consumption experience, while depressing other ways of experiencing the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protests during the 2021 Climate Conference in Glasgow exemplified our dilemma. The establishment perpetuates old thinking, while young people demand a new approach to mitigate the impact of climate change. The authors agree with the young people, and as a solution we propose to replace the current fragmentary approach with a new holistic one. The passive house approach that was conceptualized by the University of Illinois and built in Canada in 1977 showed us that energy consumption can be reduced about half of that used in the traditional design. Seventeen years later, a European passive house was built in Darmstadt. In 2008, a demonstration house in Syracuse, NY, showed that integrated passive measures produced energy use by about half of the NY state code for 2004. At the same time, some advanced houses in the USA showed total energy use of about 70 kWh/(m2∙y). In 2008, at the first Building Enclosure Science and Technology Conference, two equally important objectives for 2030 were proposed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: (1) a 90% reduction of energy use in new buildings and (2) 50% for the retrofitting of existing buildings, i.e., to the level achieved in the 1980s. The first objective has recently been achieved in small buildings while the large residential buildings remain on the level obtained in the 2000s. Yet, the retrofitting of existing buildings (the second objective) has been a dismal failure. This paper acknowledges progress in hydronic heating and cooling involving electric heat pumps and hybrid solar panels, building automatics used for operation of HVAC, and modification of air distribution systems that comes from experience with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Furthermore, it highlights that to accelerate energy efficiency and carbon emission reductions, there must be broad public-private educational programs with demonstrations of a new generation of retrofitting. Economically and ecologically retrofitted buildings will create a new approach to real estate investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fashioning James Bond: Costume, Gender and Identity in the World of 007: LLEWELLA CHAPMAN, 2022 London, NY, Bloomsbury Academic pp. xii + 320, illus., £65.00 (cloth), £19.99 (paper) Bond, James Bond, is synonymous with many iconographic elements, from gadgets and guns to megalomaniac foes with dastardly schemes, but the sharp-suited hero and the bikini-clad Bond girl are undoubtedly some of the franchise's most recognizable icons and absolutely central to its ongoing appeal. But despite being organized by Bond, the focus does not rest exclusively on the hero himself and there is plenty of space dedicated to discussing the costuming of those aforementioned Bond girls, later re-labelled Bond women, his bosses and colleagues, as well as the villains and their inevitable henchmen. [Extracted from the article]

Throughout the 1970s, a drive towards the diversification of mediums available to artists led to artists working across numerous mediums not usually associated with visual art. While some came to work with sound as a central focus in their practice, most used sound as a medium to be employed in particular artworks for conceptual purposes. The paper is focused on five audio and sound exhibitions presented in New York City between 1978 and 1984. These large group exhibitions were held in alternative art spaces and not-for-profit art galleries and have received little critical attention beyond reviews published in local newspapers and art magazines. As such, these exhibitions have all but disappeared from the history of sound in art and from art history in general. I will argue that this cluster of group shows signal to an emergent practice that was moving past the post-medium condition and conceptual art towards the postmodernism of the 1980s. These exhibitions point to an understanding of sound as a medium of visual art that is at odds with contemporary scholarship in the sonic arts, which favours a music-based understanding of approaches to sound within the art gallery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the archives of the electrical spectacular designer Douglas Leigh, this essay demonstrates the benefits of approaching the papers of commercial artists and advertisers from an art-historical perspective. Leigh's substantial archive documenting decades of production in New York City would arguably be better placed in a collection like the National Museum of American History, which has strengths in the history of advertising. But what might this change of context render invisible in a collection like the Douglas Leigh Papers? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The grid plays a prominent role in architecture, aiding in space organization and influencing all aspects of planning, ranging from urban design to intricate building details. This paper posits that the grid receives heightened emphasis in Brutalism, particularly in constructivist Brutalism, where materials and construction are intentionally exposed. A question arises regarding the grid's characteristics—despite its subtle appearance, the grid can sometimes be deceptive, ambiguous, and manipulative. The paper analyzes the merits and drawbacks of employing the grid in architecture, shedding light on its contributions to both structural and perceptual comprehensibility, as well as its role in increasing usefulness. To illustrate the application and perception of the grid, the paper examines two primary planning levels: urban planning and building design. The case studies focus on examples from New York City housing developments, specifically those constructed between the 1950s and the 1970s, and projects by architect I. M. Pei, which offer valuable insights into practical implementation. The paper concludes that while the grid can establish order, it may also engender an "uncanny" feeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harvesting usable and meaningful disaster-related, spatio-temporal data at a highly granular level poses major challenges in its cleaning and aggregation. This paper presents a strategy related to those challenges with respect to individual behavior near COVID-19 laden healthcare facilities. This is done to enable the visualizing of egress behavior data as interactive, three-dimensional (3D) scenes to investigate human behavior patterns regarding touch-based, disease transmission. Therefore, the aim is to demonstrate how this concept of 3D epidemiology may provide new mechanisms to understand the relative risk and exposure prevalence for data analysis. This paper demonstrates 3D enablement of disaster-related field data through use of first-hand observations of 1,936 individuals egressing New York City healthcare facilities during the onset of COVID-19 in the Spring of 2020. The observations capture egress behavior in terms of where people go (e.g. coffee shop, Subway) and how they physically interact with the surroundings (i.e. what they touch and how long they remain). This paper introduces a mechanism for automated extraction and 3D visualization of such data in Potree, an open-source Web Graphics Library (WebGL) point cloud viewer. Distinctive vertex shaders are used to distinguish specific destination selection and behavioral patterns (e.g. personal protective equipment usage). Two-dimensional heatmaps are paired with 3D scenes to demonstrate the potential of using 3D visualization of spatio-temporal patterns for visualizing disease transmission potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 20 years have elapsed since the September 11, 2001 (9/11) terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC), Pentagon and at Shanksville, PA. Many persons continue to suffer a variety of physical and mental health conditions following their exposures to a mixture of incompletely characterized toxicants and psychological stressors at the terrorist attack sites. Primary care and specialized clinicians should ask patients who may have been present at any of the 9/11 sites about their 9/11 exposures, especially patients with cancer, respiratory symptoms, chronic rhinosinusitis, gastroesophageal reflux disease, psychiatric symptoms, and substance use disorders. Clinicians, especially those in the NY metropolitan area, should know how to evaluate, diagnose, and treat patients with conditions that could be associated with exposure to the 9/11 attacks and its aftermath. As such, this issue of Archives contains a series of updates to clinical best practices relevant to medical conditions whose treatment is covered by the WTC Health Program. This first paper in the 14-part series describes the purpose of this series, defines the WTC Health Program and its beneficiaries, and explains how relevant Clinical Practice Guidelines were identified. This paper also reminds readers that because physical and mental health conditions are often intertwined, a coordinated approach to care usually works best and referral to health centers affiliated with the WTC Health Program may be necessary, since all such Centers offer multidisciplinary care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current bridge assets management (BAM) is based on a site inspection–based condition rating methodology. Mitigation measures are adapted to assets' condition assessment results. The reaction approach of bridge infrastructure structural evaluation does not help in judicious planning for repair and rehabilitation in prioritization for bridge assets management. This research paper presents a risk assessment method (RAM) developed upon the statistical data analysis using analytical tools and techniques of the aging effect on the corrosion anomaly rate (CAR), as proposed by the authors. The proposed RAM methodology is developed in order to provide the bridge asset manager with an analytical tool for risk-based BAM optimization. A cluster of 92 New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) steel girder with reinforced concrete deck bridges was selected. The main objectives of this research paper are to (1) develop a risk rating methodology (RAM) for preemptive bridge assets management, (2) compare the RAM-based risk rating (RR) with the primary member condition rating (CR) of 92 NYCDOT nonrehabilitated steel girder with reinforced concrete deck bridges, and (3) provide analytical tools for bridge life-cycle determination for different vulnerability levels and for forecasting the financial risk of prolonged delayed rehabilitation. This innovative paper illustrates the RAM application for predicting the aging process on the CAR and its disposition for a preemptive BAM planning and development. Practical Applications: Extending the useful service life of aging bridges is a critical issue of global interest. One problem faced globally by the transportation industry is the degradation of structural components of bridges. The purpose and practical application of this paper is to demonstrate a risk assessment approach for BAM relying on statistical data analysis for prioritizing the repair/rehabilitation of deteriorating bridge system. This research presents the deterioration rate concept in BAM framework consisting of estimating the useful service life expectancy of deteriorating bridge system through statistical data analysis, developing a deterioration rate model. The current BAM is based on a site inspection–based condition rating methodology, which depends upon structural evaluator's judgments. The outcomes of this research have demonstrated, through statistical data analysis, that the pattern of aging effects on the time-dependent CAR value may effectively serve as a substantial time-dependent early degradation indicator for life-cycle state evaluation and serviceability performance degradation. BAM provides valuable aid for bridge owner decision makers in forecasting the degradation rate of bridge system and making preemptive decisions for rehabilitation investment prioritization. One practical application of this research is forecasting the cost implications of deferred repair/rehabilitation along with associated financial risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In the U.S. there are significant racial and gender disparities in the uptake of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Black Americans represented 14% of PrEP users in 2022, but accounted for 42% of new HIV diagnoses in 2021 and in the South, Black people represented 48% of new HIV diagnoses in 2021 but only 21% of PrEP users in 2022. Women who use drugs may be even less likely than women who do not use drugs have initiated PrEP. Moreover, women involved in community supervision programs (CSP) are less likely to initiate or use PrEP, More PrEP interventions that focus on Black women with recent history of drug use in CSPs are needed to reduce inequities in PrEP uptake. Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis from a randomized clinical trial with a sub-sample (n = 336) of the total (N = 352) participants from the parent study (E-WORTH), who tested HIV negative at baseline were considered PrEP-eligible. Black women were recruited from CSPs in New York City (NYC), with recent substance use. Participants were randomized to either E-WORTH (n = 172) an HIV testing plus, receive a 5-session, culturally-tailored, group-based HIV prevention intervention, versus an HIV testing control group (n = 180). The 5 sessions included an introduction to PrEP and access. This paper reports outcomes on improved awareness of PrEP, willingness to use PrEP, and PrEP uptake over the 12-month follow-up period. HIV outcomes are reported in a previous paper. Results: Compared to control participants, participants in this study assigned to E-WORTH had significantly greater odds of being aware of PrEP as a biomedical HIV prevention strategy (OR = 3.25, 95% CI = 1.64–6.46, p = 0.001), and indicated a greater willingness to use PrEP as an HIV prevention method (b = 0.19, 95% CI = 0.06–0.32, p = 0.004) over the entire 12-month follow-up period. Conclusions: These findings underscore the effectiveness of a culturally-tailored intervention for Black women in CSP settings in increasing awareness, and intention to initiate PrEP. Low uptake of PrEP in both arms highlight the need for providing more robust PrEP-on-demand strategies that are integrated into other services such as substance abuse treatment. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02391233. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the dynamic realm of big data processing, conquering the challenges imposed by highdimensional datasets is imperative. This paper introduces a groundbreaking advancement in dimensionality reduction, employing Variational Auto-Encoder (VAE) within the Spark distributed framework. The deliberate selection of the "TLC" dataset, representative of New York City taxi trips with inherent high dimensionality, highlights the practicality of our approach. Our research showcases the virtuoso performance of VAE, achieving an impressive 95.12% reduction ratio and 89.26% accuracy. This highlights VAE's ability to elegantly distill essential information while discarding superfluous dimensions, achieving a harmonious balance between reduction and accuracy. Furthermore, building on the demonstrated superiority of Spark over Hadoop in prior successes, our adoption of VAE aligns with the overarching goal of enhancing big data processing. Spark's consistent advantage as a distributed framework reaffirms its reliability in handling diverse machine learning algorithms. This paper not only contributes to the advancement of machine learning in big data processing but also underscores the adaptability, versatility, and consistent performance of our approach across various methodologies and frameworks. The success of VAE in reducing dimensionality, coupled with Spark's inherent advantages, positions this research as a valuable contribution to the exploration of advanced techniques in distributed big data processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that Ecuadorians are one of the largest groups of Hispanics living in New York, they have become a tight community that they now call little Ecuador. Although Ecuadorians living in the diaspora in NYC come from different parts of the country (mostly from the Andean region), they share the same cultural practices they performed in Ecuador that give them the sense of being in their country without bearing the instability and turmoil their country experiences. This shows how the group has fostered a sense of a multifaceted, multidimensional simultaneity between the host country and the motherland. The goal of this paper is to analyze the strategies Ecuadorian migrants use to validate their language and cultural practices to negotiate their identity as a group. Data for this paper come from ethnographic observations, semi-spontaneous conversations, oral interviews with members of the group, along with pictures taken while walking the community and participating in some of their events. Our study reveals that participants hold varying perceptions regarding their linguistic and cultural practices. However, it is noteworthy that they recognize these practices as a manifestation of Ecuadorianness, signifying a sense of solidarity among community members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In the mid-twentieth century, growing North American textile and ready-to-wear industries vigorously appropriated Native American aesthetics to cultivate a commercial and design identity apart from Europe. Most studies of the circulation of Indigenous idioms in these industries focus on Southwestern or South Pacific regionalisms, and scholarship on studio and commercial fabric and fashion design from the Northwest Coast in the twentieth century is limited. This paper contributes by raising Indigenous and non-Indigenous use of Northwest Coast design forms during the politically turbulent 1940s–1960s and analyzing the impact of this aesthetic vocabulary within broader North American textiles and fashion. Throughout, I engage with the approaches of critical fashion theory and multiple modernisms, considering the frictions of property and power relations within settler-colonial states, then and now. Drawing from study of objects, periodicals, and archival materials as well as first-person perspectives, I contextualize these representations within entangled art, museum, and design worlds in the Northwest Coast, New York City, and the Southwest. My examination illustrates that Northwest Coast artists and art ideas asserted a peripheral but locatable role in mid-century textiles and fashion, facilitating the development of today's robust Indigenous fashion network on the Northwest Coast and its cultural politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional air-assisted side-deep fertilization device has some problems, such as inaccurate control system parameters and poor precision in variable fertilization. It seriously affects the application and popularization of the device. Aiming at the above problems, this paper wanted to realize the precise fertilizer discharge control of an air-assisted side-deep fertilization device. This paper designs an electronically controlled fertilization system based on a PID controller from the past. The system model was constructed in MATLAB, and the mathematical model and transfer function model of a stepper motor, the mathematical model of fertilizer discharge, and the stepper motor rotational speed were established too. In order to improve the accuracy of precise fertilizer discharge control system parameters, the system parameters were optimized based on the particle swarm optimization algorithm and the control system tuner toolbox. We had established a validation test platform to test the performance of a precise fertilizer discharge control system. In the actual experiment, the maximum stability coefficient of variation was 0.91% at the target fertilizer discharge mass level of 350 g/min, and the maximum error of fertilizer discharge was 4.14% at 550 g/min of the target fertilizer discharge mass level. By analyzing the test results of the precise fertilizer discharge control system, the new precise fertilizer discharge control system had good fertilizer discharge stability and could also meet the technical specification for quality evaluation of fertilization machinery (NY/T 1003-2006). This research can improve the fertilizer discharge accuracy of the air-assisted side-deep fertilization control system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper maps and spatializes the Almshouse Ledger records for the children of unmarried parents in New York City in the 1820 and 1830s. Mapping the distribution of poverty and the provision of forms of welfare in the city, this paper illustrates specific areas of the city which were attracting the very poor as early as the second decade of the nineteenth century. This paper argues that migrants from countries with similar welfare systems to those established in New York may be overrepresented in the record due to familiarity with the system. This interdisciplinary paper combines archaeological approaches to GIS with archival research to illustrate the distribution of welfare provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2022 ASMC, our 33rd, returned to Saratoga Springs, NY as an in-person conference after 2 years as a virtual conference. While we are all grateful for the digital world’s enhancements that allowed this conference to be held remotely, attendees were happy to return to an in-person event where networking is much easier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open Educational Resources (OER) have continued to gain traction in higher education, assisting with ever-rising costs of publisher textbooks and supporting pedagogical innovation. Starting in 2017, NY state legislature has allocated funds annually to be split between its two public university systems to support and incentivize the adoption of OER. The author's institution, an included public college, has secured portions of this funding each year. This paper will focus on the initial five years of the statefunded OER initiative at the City University of New York (CUNY) College of Staten Island, with reflections on the successes of the program, the overall process of the annual grant cycle on campus, challenges that arose in the burgeoning OER program, and suggestions for future considerations. The main aim of this paper is to highlight the impact of state funding on the establishment of a library-facilitated OER initiative, to serve as a example for other institutions who are seeking to build an OER program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lateral roots, including adventitious roots, are the main component of rapeseed roots with support, absorb, and synthesis functions and their morphological parameters directly affecting the plant's aboveground growth and yield. Root biomass, as a material base for lateral root growth, can be used as a link between plant phenotypes and their physiological processes, as well as to enhance root 3D growth model mechanisms and accuracy. To quantify the relationships between lateral root morphological indices and the corresponding organ biomass for rapeseed, we used two cultivars, NY 22 (conventional) and NZ 1818 (hybrid), and conducted cultivar and fertilizing cylindrical tube experiments during the 2016–2019, with two fertilizer levels, no fertilizer, and 180 kg N ha−1 fertilizer. The lateral root biomass and morphological parameters were determined during the whole growth period. The biomass‐based lateral root morphological parameter models were developed by analyzing the quantitative relationship between the lateral root morphological indices and their corresponding biomass, and the descriptive models were verified with independent experimental data. The results showed that the correlation (r) of simulated and observed values for the lateral root morphological parameters are all greater than 0.9 with significant levels at p < 0.001. The absolute values of the average absolute difference (da) of simulated and observed values for the lateral root length (LLR), lateral root average diameter (ADLR), lateral root surface area (SALR), and lateral root volume (VLR) are −30.408 cm, −0.003 mm, 12.902 cm2, and 0.039 cm3, respectively. The RMSE values are 175.183 cm, 0.010 mm, 59.710 cm2, and 1.513 cm3, respectively. The ratio of da to the average observed values (dap) for the LLR and VLR are all less than 5%, and the ADLR and SALR are all <6%. The models developed in this paper have good performance and reliability for predicting lateral root morphological parameters of rapeseed. The study provides a mechanistic method for linking the rapeseed growth model with the morphological model using corresponding organic biomass and laying a good foundation for establishing a 3D morphological model for rapeseed root system based on biomass. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The critical platform studies literature is increasingly considering the role of social difference as a structuring logic in the platform economy, complementing understandings of worker precarity facilitated by worker misclassification and algorithmic management. Contributing to this literature, this paper demonstrates how platforms and police produce carceral geographies that manage and exploit immigrant delivery workers as surplus populations. The carceral geographies of the platform economy account for both how carceral space produces and manages the surplus populations from which platform capital draws its workers, facilitating the disposability and exploitation of workers. Focusing on South Asian delivery workers in New York City, the paper uses the example of bike registrations to show how police and platforms expand carceral spaces in immigrant communities, increasing their vulnerability to premature death and violence. Finally, it suggests how delivery worker organising offers instances of situated resistance that challenge platform capital and carceral logics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a mathematical optimization strategy for optimal municipal solid waste management in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic. This strategy integrates two approaches: optimization and machine learning models. First, the optimization model determines the optimal supply chain for the municipal waste management system. Then, machine learning prediction models estimate the required parameters over time, which helps generate future projections for the proposed strategy. The optimization model was coded in the General Algebraic Modeling System, while the prediction model was coded in the Python programming environment. A case study of New York City was addressed to evaluate the proposed strategy, which includes extensive socioeconomic data sets to train the machine learning model. We found the predicted waste collection over time based on the socioeconomic data. The results show trade-offs between the economic (profit) and environmental (waste sent to landfill) objectives for future scenarios, which can be helpful for possible pandemic scenarios in the following years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is concerned with individuals' symbolic interactions with the Charging Bull statue. We chose this statue because it is an extremely popular tourist attraction and the most visited nonhuman statue in New York City. However, there is no research devoted to understanding how visitors interact with the statue. To fill this gap in the literature, we examine people's interactions as a unique way of communicating with the Charging Bull statue in New York City through a photo analysis approach. Using the general framework of symbolic interactionism, the paper investigates poses, gestures, and more generally interactions of individuals near or with the statue to gain insights into the impact of the Charging Bull beyond a mere visual representation. The findings reveal various forms of interaction, including souvenir photography, active participation, unexpected interactions, and public-made symbolism. This study of these interactions contributes to the literature on collective memory and the study of statues. Additionally, this research highlights the inventiveness of the dynamic relationship between individuals and statues as symbols in the urban environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drones are becoming indispensable in emergency search and rescue (SAR), particularly in intricate urban areas where rapid and accurate response is crucial. This study addresses the pressing need for enhancing drone navigation in such complex, dynamic urban environments, where obstacles like building layouts and varying wind conditions create unique challenges. Particularly, the need for adapting drone autonomous navigation in correspondence with dynamic wind conditions in urban settings is emphasized because it is important for drones to avoid loss of control or crashes during SAR. This paper introduces a pioneering method integrating multiobjective reinforcement learning (MORL) with a convolutional autoencoder to train autonomous drones in comprehending and reacting to aerodynamic features in urban SAR. MORL enables the drone to optimize multiple goals, whereas the convolutional autoencoder generates synthetic wind simulations with a substantially lower computation cost compared to traditional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. A unique data transfer structure is also proposed, which fosters a seamless integration of perception and decision-making between machine learning (ML) and reinforcement learning (RL) components. This approach uses imagery data, specific to building layouts, allowing the drone to autonomously formulate policies, prioritize navigation decisions, optimize paths, and mitigate the impact of wind, all while negating the necessity for conventional aerodynamic force sensors. The method was validated with a model of New York City, offering substantial implications for enhancing automation algorithms in urban SAR. This innovation enables the possibility of more efficient, precise, and timely drone SAR operations within intricate urban landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores an interdisciplinary approach that researchers can use to understand how people feel about their movement in the cityscape and their risk-taking activities by visualizing it. Author 1, a visual artist, and Author 2, a criminologist, used a psychogeography method where participants hand-drew maps of their everyday operations in the sex marketplace. Researchers, artists, and activists have used mapmaking to elucidate how individuals conceptualize physical space and place or their subjective, emotional relationship to the city's geography. Psychogeographers Lynch and Debord have used it to understand how participants feel about moving, inhabiting, navigating risk, and subverting space in the metropolis. We use this method as a vehicle to show how sex market facilitators' imagine the physical geographic space where they work in the nighttime economy, their embodiment in managing a business in the urban landscape, their emotions in this risk-taking activity, and how they feel rerouting city blocks and subverting formal capitalism. In addition, this technique enabled participants to feel and recall emotions of this lived experience, such as excitement, control, authenticity, shame, and freedom. Sixty participants who worked in New York City hand drew mental maps or visual depictions of where they worked within the city. This visual storytelling method provides an avenue for what O'Neill terms an ethno-mimetic process where images/performances make lived experiences palpable to viewers. In this case, we see a glimpse of the sensations of this high-risk activity in the sex marketplace, allowing us to understand participants' social relations, lived experiences, and motivations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) is an unsupervised algorithm in machine learning. It models several fundamental neocortical computational principles. Spatial Pooler (SP) is one of the main components of the HTM, which continuously encodes streams of binary input from various layers and regions into sparse distributed representations. In this paper, the goal is to evaluate the sparsification in the SP algorithm from the perspective of information theory by the information bottleneck (IB), Cramer-Rao lower bound, and Fisher information matrix. This paper makes two main contributions. First, we introduce a new upper bound for the standard information bottleneck relation, which we refer to as modified-IB in this paper. This measure is used to evaluate the performance of the SP algorithm in different sparsity levels and various amounts of noise. The MNIST, Fashion-MNIST and NYC-Taxi datasets were fed to the SP algorithm separately. The SP algorithm with learning was found to be resistant to noise. Adding up to 40% noise to the input resulted in no discernible change in the output. Using the probabilistic mapping method and Hidden Markov Model, the sparse SP output representation was reconstructed in the input space. In the modified-IB relation, it is numerically calculated that a lower noise level and a higher sparsity level in the SP algorithm lead to a more effective reconstruction and SP with 2% sparsity produces the best results. Our second contribution is to prove mathematically that more sparsity leads to better performance of the SP algorithm. The data distribution was considered the Cauchy distribution, and the Cramer--Rao lower bound was analyzed to estimate SP's output at different sparsity levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mega sporting events, such as the FIFA World Cup, Olympic Games and Super Bowl, are often constructed as corresponding sites of bodily tourism, with a shared motivation among some tourists to purchase and consume both commercialized sport and sex. This paper begins by deconstructing the 'common sense' connection between sport tourism and sex trafficking. It recognizes, however, that both sport and sex tourism are grounded in bodily consumption and conquest. That is, both sex and sport tourism rely on the commodification and consumption of the body as currency and fantasy, defined as a libidinal economy. As such, this paper explores the colonial systems of power that enable and perpetuate the commodification of colonized bodies at the intersection of sport tourism and sex tourism. The paper situates this intersection within the colonial matrix of power and the structural hierarchies maintained through the colonial framing of power, race, gender and sexuality. In this sense, tourism is defined as roving colonialism [Sykes, H. (2017). The sexual and gender politics of sport mega-events: Roving colonialism. New York, NY: Routledge]. Using the colonial matrix of power as a theoretical framework, then, we evaluate the libidinal economies of sport tourism and sex tourism and propose a conceptual understanding of bodily labor and exploitation at this unique intersection. By using this conceptual framework, this paper calls for further empirical study that explicitly evaluates the impact of corresponding systems of sport tourism and sex tourism simultaneously at play within national and international sporting events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 30 years after its premiere, Seinfeld continues its run as a seminally popular television show. On October 1, 2021, five‐year streaming rights to the show were purchased by Netflix for $500 million. Set in New York City, where rent control laws have a long history, several episodes of the show consider the trials of apartment living, including shortages, tastes for discrimination by sellers, bribery, search costs, and quality degradation. Seinfeld also illustrates the informal process through which rent‐controlled apartments are advertised (e.g., less advertising under rent control shortage). This paper argues that popular media can be used as an effective pedagogical tool in learning. This paper analyzes four episodes of Seinfeld to help students identify and differentiate the very real costs of rent control. The paper also guides students to appreciate the difficulty in crafting a policy that is free of unintended consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Healthy NYC is an innovative survey panel created by the New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) that offers a cost-effective mechanism for collecting priority and timely health information. Between November 2020 and June 2021, invitations for six different surveys were sent to Healthy NYC panelists by postal mail, email, and text messages. Panelists had the option to complete surveys online or via paper survey. Methods: We analyzed whether panelists varied by sociodemographic characteristics based on the contact mode they provided and the type of invitation that led to their response using logistic regression models. Poisson regression models were used to determine whether the number of invitations received before participating in a survey was associated with sociodemographic characteristics. Results: Younger age and higher education were positively associated with providing an email or text contact. Furthermore, age, race, and income were significant predictors for invitation modes that led to a survey response. Black panelists had 72% greater odds (OR 1.72 95% CI: 1.11–2.68) of responding to a mail invite and 33% lesser odds (OR 0.67, 95% CI: 0.54–0.83) of responding to an email invite compared with White panelists. Additionally, in five of the six surveys, more than half of the respondents completed surveys after two invites. Email invitations garnered the highest participation rates. Conclusions: We recommend using targeted invitation modes as an additional strategy to improve participation in panels. For lower-income panelists who do not provide an email address, it may be reasonable to offer additional response options that do not require internet access. Our study's findings provide insight into how panels can tailor outreach to panelists, especially among underrepresented groups, in the most economical and efficient ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The built environment anchors social, economic, and political community. A limited neighbourhood milieu fosters and maintains relationships that enable a community to realize its values. Fundamental civic activities such as getting out the vote depend on this empowerment. Voting has declined across New York City, but especially in the Bronx, which experienced the largest decline in voting between the 1969 and 2021 mayoral elections. The South and Central Bronx is now the largest city area of extremely low voter participation. This paper explores how public policies generated by the real estate industry – specifically redlining, urban renewal, and planned shrinkage – in conjunction with the Permanent Registration article in the 1938 New York State Constitution suppressed voting. The distribution of premature mortality and other health problems in the Bronx appear to be another consequence of these policies. That is, disempowerment and health erosion appear related and stem from influence of the real estate industry on mayoral policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of 'informal' financial practices in shaping the resilience of immigrant urban communities, many of which are centered around families—nuclear, extended, and chosen. It looks at financial transactions and services, with particular attention to Rotating Credit and Savings Associations (ROSCAs), whose members are frequently related to each other through ties of kinship, especially in Hispanic circles. In a pioneering study documenting ROSCAs, they were defined as associations where members agree to make regular contributions of money to a fund that is given to each contributor in rotation. Because of their presence in various cultures and geographies, researchers from various disciplines have studied them, mostly in developing countries and immigrant communities within the United States. It is argued that such mechanisms substitute or complement formal financial services that do not fulfill their needs and play a key role in the infrastructures of immigrant communities to be resilient in the face of adverse circumstances. Findings from the present study's fieldwork, conducted in one neighborhood in New York City's South Bronx, show that these kinds of groups address the members' short-term safety and resilience needs. However, given their low returns and unclear procedures to address wrongdoings, they entail higher risks for long term planning and social mobility. Nevertheless, given their persistent and organic nature across cultures and borders, they provide important insights to address those gaps and shed light on the contributions of family dynamics to the public domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the impacts of ranked choice voting (RCV) on voter efficacy is important as more areas consider adoption. The greater number of choices provided by longer RCV ballots may introduce opportunities for voters to misunderstand the ballot, make errant marks, or accidentally mark two or more candidates for one ranking, resulting in voidable ballots due to "overvoting." Using ballot data from the 2013 general election, the 2017, and 2021 New York City democratic mayoral primaries, this paper asks whether voidable overvote ballots are more concentrated in constituencies with lower levels of educational attainment, average household incomes, and differing racial make-ups, and if this relationship is more pronounced under RCV than traditional elections. In the first RCV election in 2021, voters in locations with lower levels of educational attainment and median household incomes had higher shares of overvote voidable ballots than those in locations with higher educational attainment and incomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human movements in urban areas are essential to understand human–environment interactions. However, activities and associated movements are full of uncertainties due to the complexity of a city. In this paper, we propose a novel sensor-based approach for spatiotemporal event detection based on the Discrete Empirical Interpolation Method. Specifically, we first identify the key locations, defined as "sensors", which have the strongest correlation with the whole dataset. We then simulate a regular uneventful scenario with the observation data points from those key locations. By comparing the simulated and observation scenarios, events are extracted both spatially and temporally. We apply this method in New York City with taxi trip record data. Results show that this method is effective in detecting when and where events occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-clinical linkage models (CCLM) have the potential to reduce health disparities, especially in underserved communities; however, the COVID-19 pandemic drastically impacted their implementation. This paper explores the impact of the pandemic on the implementation of CCLM intervention led by community health workers (CHWs) to address diabetes disparities among South Asian patients in New York City. Guided by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR), 22 stakeholders were interviewed: 7 primary care providers, 7 CHWs, 5 community-based organization (CBO) representatives, and 3 research staff. Semi-structured interviews were conducted; interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. CFIR constructs guided the identification of barriers and adaptations made across several dimensions of the study's implementation context. We also explored stakeholder-identified adaptations used to mitigate the challenges in the intervention delivery using the Model for Adaptation Design and Impact (MADI) framework. (1) Communication and engagement refers to how stakeholders communicated with participants during the intervention period, including difficulties experienced staying connected with intervention activities during the lockdown. The study team and CHWs developed simple, plain-language guides designed to enhance digital literacy. (2) Intervention/research process describes intervention characteristics and challenges stakeholders faced in implementing components of the intervention during the lockdown. CHWs modified the health curriculum materials delivered remotely to support engagement in the intervention and health promotion. (3) community and implementation context pertains to the social and economic consequences of the lockdown and their effect on intervention implementation. CHWs and CBOs enhanced efforts to provide emotional/mental health support and connected community members to resources to address social needs. Study findings articulate a repository of recommendations for the adaptation of community-delivered programs in under-served communities during a time of public health crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ridesharing effectively tackles urban mobility challenges by providing a service comparable to private vehicles while minimising resource usage. Our research primarily concentrates on dynamic ridesharing, which conventionally involves connecting drivers with passengers in need of transportation. The process of one-to-one matching presents a complex challenge, particularly when addressing it on a large scale, as the substantial number of potential matches make the attainment of a global optimum a challenging endeavour. This paper aims to address the absence of an optimal approach for dynamic ridesharing by refraining from the conventional heuristic-based methods commonly used to achieve timely solutions in large-scale ride-matching. Instead, we propose a novel approach that provides snapshot-optimal solutions for various forms of one-to-one matching while ensuring they are generated within an acceptable timeframe for service providers. Additionally, we introduce and solve a new variant in which the system itself provides the vehicles. The efficacy of our methodology is substantiated through experiments carried out with real-world data extracted from the openly available New York City taxicab dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ways in which Mexican immigrants experience, narrate, and describe stress and the extent to which it impacts their efforts at engaging in physical activity using a biocitizenship framework. Data were derived from a mixed-method study among Mexicans living in New York City recruited from a large Catholic church. The qualitative sample of 25 participated in quantitative and qualitative components of the study and as such we include some of these quantitative indicators as descriptors. Our main qualitative findings reveal that study participants experience stress and time constraint as factors that contribute to the waning of their physical and mental well-being. As such, time constraints for many of our participants were among the factors that contributed to high perceived levels of stress. They attributed this to their difficulty maintaining a physically active lifestyle due to factors like the fast-paced lifestyle in New York, working long hours, and not having enough time to exercise, though some important differences in narratives were noted across gender. Findings have implications for interventions aimed at improving the health of immigrants in general and Mexican immigrants in New York City specifically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]