Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Civic turn'

This study provides a feminist critical examination of the proposal to add a language and civic knowledge requirement for citizenship acquisition and the ideas of belonging that are constructed within the proposal. The analysis has been made with Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be’-approach to policy analysis, examining what is represented as the ‘problem’ in the proposal, which assumptions and presuppositions that underlie this representation of the ‘problem’, what is silenced or unproblematized in this representation of the problem, an the potential effects that this representation of the problem can have. The analysis shows how the ‘problem’ in the proposal for language and civic knowledge requirements is represented as a ‘lack of knowledge and participation’ that’s been made possible due to a ‘lack of demands’. Further, the representation of the ‘problem’ constituting the ‘solution’ of the proposed requirements is individualized and the expected exclusionary effects of the proposal unproblematized. Finally, I argue that the representations of the ‘problem’ construct ideas of belonging which are predominantly about assessment of eligibility to be allowed entry into the ‘collectivity’ of Swedish citizenship.

A macroscopic simulation tool is developed and tested in order to quantify the effects of short turn pockets on the sustainable service rate of a signalized intersection. Unlike the theoretical signal capacity, the sustainable service rate includes queue interaction effects and is thus influenced by blockage and spillback at the entrance to a short turn pocket. Previous research on the topic has focused either on the probability of spillback from a short turn pocket or the operation of a system with a single approach lane. No macroscopic model currently available has the ability to analyze throughput reductions due to short turn pocket effects on a multilane approach. The model described herein utilizes a series of flow and density restrictions on cells of varying sizes on the approach to the intersection. Results indicate sensitivity of the model to turn pocket spillback, blockage, saturation flow rate, pocket length, lane utilization, phase sequence, phase overlap, permitted phasing, and time-dependent demand. A phase optimization procedure is also described to help efficiently allocate green time for a given set of turn pocket lengths and turn movement percentages. Outputs from the model compare favorably to results generated using microsimulation software, and recommendations are made regarding additional model enhancements and testing needs.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 1995.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-111).
by Luis Mario Benítez Plauchud.
M.S.

This thesis is concerned with the changing relationship between political parties and civil society, focusing on the turn to community organising by the British Labour Party in the aftermath of its 2010 General Election defeat. It documents the model of community organising developed by Movement for Change (M4C), the application of this model within the Labour Party, and the impact of this model on the Labour Party's relationship to civil society. This thesis finds its theoretical home in debates about the role of political parties in modern democracy, the ability of parties to represent the myriad interests of civil society, and the extent to which parties with strong linkages to place-based forms of civil society associations are capable of bridging the divide between society and the state. Additionally, this thesis contextualises the Labour Party's turn to community organising within a history of the party's relationship to civil society from the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century, focusing on the ideas of Eduard Bernstein, Anthony Crosland and those associated with Blue Labour. Empirical material within the thesis was collected during a twelve-month period of participant observation within M4C between September 2012 and September 2013. This provided data on M4C's community organising projects in Southampton and Cardiff. Through the development of these cases the thesis considers the potential for creating a collaborative space beyond the institutional boundaries of the party in which actors from the party and civil society deliberate on issues of common concern, development campaign strategies together, and take action to affect change. The examination of this space allows this thesis to argue that the organisational capacity of a political party is enhanced when it forms strong links to civil society associations engaged in a tradition of place-based political organising, as well as offering a means by which political parties can evolve in response to external challenges they are likely to face in the future.

Left-turning maneuvers are considered to be the highest risk movements at intersections and two-thirds of the crashes associated with left-turns are reported at signalized intersections. Left-turning vehicles typically encounter conflicts from opposing through traffic. To separate conflicting movements, transportation agencies use a protected-only phase at signalized intersections where each movement is allowed to move alone. However, this could create delays and thus the concept of a protected-permissive phase has been introduced to balance safety and delays. However, the permissive part of this phasing scheme retains the safety concerns and could increase the possibility of conflicts resulting in crashes. This research developed a model that can predict the number of crashes for protected-permissive left-turn phasing, based on traffic volumes and calculated conflicts. A total of 103 intersections with permissive-protected left-turn phasing in Kentucky were simulated and their left-turn related conflicts were obtained from post processing vehicle trajectories through the Surrogate Safety Assessment Model (SSAM). Factors that could affect crash propensity were identified through the Principal Component Analysis in Negative Binomial Regression. Nomographs were developed from the models which can be used by traffic engineers in left-turn phasing decisions with enhanced safety considerations.

In July of 1863 the photographs A Harvest of Death, Field Where General Reynolds Fell, A Sharpshooter's Last Sleep, and The Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter were taken after the battle at Gettysburg by a team of photographers led by Alexander Gardner. In the decades that followed these images of the dead of the battlefield became some of the most iconic representations of the American Civil War. Today, Gardner's Gettysburg photographs can be found in almost every contemporary history text, documentary, or collection of images from the war, yet their journey to this iconic status has been little discussed. The goal of this thesis is to expand the general understanding of these Civil War photographs and their legacy by considering their use beyond the early 1860s. Although part of a larger scope of influence, the discussion of the photographs presented here will focus particularly on the years between 1894 and 1911. Between those years they were made available to the public through large photographic histories and other history texts as well. The aim of these texts, which framed and manipulated Gardner's images, were to disseminate a propagandistic history of the war in a way that outlined it as a nationally unifying experience, rather than one of division. These texts mark the beginning of the influence the Gettysburg photographs would have on American memory of the war. Within these books the four photographs became part of a larger effort to reconnect with the past and shape the war into a source for a unified American identity.

This dissertation examines the emergence of Florida from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the twentieth century through the lenses of Jacksonville, Pensacola, Tampa, and Miami as they became the major economic and social centers within the state. Influenced by Union and Republican ideologies, early immigration tracts promised egalitarian land development rooted in the promise of citrus, diversified agriculture, real-estate, and the promise of tourism. As more northerners came to rely upon cheap black labor to make their dream a reality, the earlier narrative of egalitarianism began to loose ground to the demands for inexpensive labor. The need for quicker and faster conveyance for the new fruits and vegetables also required large land grants to entice railroads to the state, which in turn, threatened the subsistence lifestyle upon which many of the immigrants and farmers depended. As higher land prices pushed poor whites and African Americans deeper into the Florida frontier, unprecedented corporate and railroad land subsidies gobbled up much of the remaining unclaimed lands leading to unprecedented social, economic, and political turmoil across the state. As greater profits via shipping rates, agricultural production, and industrial output came to dominate the political economies of each of the cities, the earlier social and economic needs and desires of farmers and laborers that Republican and northern ideologues tried to protect increasingly lost ground to calls for a two tiered economic and social system that put the monetary needs of Florida’s white citizens, businesses, and corporations over those of its African American and ethnic populations resulting in statewide disenfranchisement, social segregation, and economic stratification that placed whites at the top of the economic ladder with African Americans largely relegated along the bottom rungs of the social and economic order. Although this outcome reflects a regional pattern that swept across much of the South, this work shows that for a brief period of 35 years, Florida offered a unique moment when the state and its cities moved to protect and encourage the individual desires of freedmen, poor whites, laborers and ethnic immigrants to promote and encourage growth, settlement, and development.

Most safety analysis is conducted using crash data. Surrogate safety measures, such as various time-based measures of time-to-collision can be related to crash potential and used to gain insight into the frequency and severity of crashes at a specific location. One of the most common and acknowledged measures is post-encroachment time (PET) which defines the time between vehicles occupying a conflicting space. While commonly used in studies of motor vehicle interactions, studies of PET for bicycle-vehicle interactions are few. In this research, the PET of bicycle-vehicle interactions measured in the field, a driving simulator, and in a micro-simulation are compared. A total of 52 right-hook conflicts were identified in 135 hours of video footage over 14 days at a signalized intersection in Portland, OR (SW Taylor and SW Naito Pkwy). The results showed that 4 of 17 high-risk conflicts could not be identified by the conventional definition of PET and PET values of some conflicts did not reflect true risk of collision. Therefore, right-hook conflicts were categorized into two types and a modified measure of PET was proposed so that their frequency and severity were properly measured. PETs from the field were then compared to those measures in the Oregon State University driving simulator during research conducted by Dr. Hurwitz et al. (2015) studying the right-hook conflicts. Statistical and graphical methods were used to compare field PETs to those in the simulator. The results suggest that the relative validity of the OSU driving simulator was good but not conclusive due to differences in traffic conditions and intersections. To further explore the field-observed PET values, traffic simulation models of the field intersection were developed and calibrated. Right-hook conflicts were extracted from the simulation files and conflicts observed in PM-peak hours over 6 days in the field were compared to those obtained from 24 traffic simulation runs. The field-observed PET values did not match the values from the simulation values very well. However, the approach does show promise. Further calibration of driving and bicycling behaviors would likely improve the result.

The relationship between the relative risk of a collision involving a turn maneuver and the configuration of both the rear and front turn signal (ON/OFF) was examined using data pooled from the answers of a survey proposed to 67 people. To perform the analyses, many videos have been collected during the tests campaign, both in urban and suburban areas, using a 360-camera attached to the motorcyclist’s helmet. In the videos the biker was riding along the street and was overtaking/passing a car stationary at an intersection which had the turn signal turned on. Different variations of this basic situation have been performed such as, adding a second car behind the first one, turning off the car’s blinker, changing the location of the tests (from urban to suburban area), changing the direction of the motorcycle (from having the same direction of the tester’s car to opposite direction). During the survey phase, people needed to answer a simple questionnaire- after having watched two videos (chosen among the twelve alternatives) using a virtual reality visor- containing, among the other questions, the one asking if they saw the car’s turn indicator turned on or not. The detection of the blinker was combined with other factors (e.g. age, gender, location, presence of the car behind the tester vehicle etc.) in a stepwise logistic regression that modelled the odds of detecting the turn signal turned on as a function of all of these factors.The analyses suggest that there is an association between detecting the turn signal switched on and, for example, being female, or not being a habitual biker, or being in suburban area. The differences in the analyses are discussed in terms of the attributes (age, gender, etc.) chosen for the different tests configurations. Further investigations of factors and data seem warranted before drawing more accurate conclusions regarding the turn signal and the association with the attributes of the model.

Nonpoint source nutrient pollution is diffuse pollution lacking discrete origin and conveyance. This thesis synthesizes and critically reviews research on residential nitrogen and phosphorus loss to stormwater runoff and leaching. The evaluation pulls from research covering influential socio-demographic indicators, such as use of lawn maintenance services and homeowner fertilizer practices. The extent to which such social and economic factors may influence the prevalence and fate of diffuse nutrients in stormwater runoff from residential areas has not been adequately established. Understanding the source and influencing factors of diffuse nutrient pollution is important in order to effectively protect surface and groundwater resources. Research based on sampling campaigns of catchments, sampling of controlled turf systems and models of residential catchments were compiled for this review. Based on the compilation reviewed for this thesis, there are wide differences in approaches researchers have taken to attempt to quantify and understand diffuse nutrient pollution from residential and urban areas. There is not consistency in the chemical nitrogen or phosphorus species evaluated or in reported measurements (i.e. concentration vs. loading vs. yield). This review revealed several important knowledge gaps. Determination of correlation between residential system nutrient loss to the environment and social factors, demographic characteristics, local fertilizer ordinances or nutrient management education programs has not been substantiated. More exploration of nutrient leaching from different soil types and turf grass species is needed to develop a complete understanding of nutrient loss from turf grass systems. Further, other specific management practices such as leaving grass clippings on lawns has not been studied in depth for a variety of soil types and grass species. There is room for improvement in future research and additional studies are needed to guide future policy and implementation of best management practices. Based on these and other findings, I recommend a concerted effort to standardize a portion of the reporting details of future stormwater research and for reevaluation of nutrient/fertilizer education efforts.

Mestrado em Engenharia Civil
Earthen dikes (or earthen levees) are built all over the world, both in coastal (coastal dikes) and inland areas (riverine dikes), to protect population, infrastructures and resources from high water levels due to storm surges and seasonal floods. Most of these flood defence embankments are not prepared to resist to surface soil erosion of its crest and landside slope induced by overflowing events, and hence, maybe at risk of failure. Mitigation of dike damage by overflow may be accomplished by providing erosion protection on the surface of the crest and dike landside slope. Erosion protection can be conferred by a variety of materials (rip-rap, concrete, geosynthetics, etc.) ranging from hard armouring to light armouring alternatives. The present dissertation focuses on strengthening systems consisting of lightweight, flexible, synthetic mats such as (high performance) turf reinforcement mats and geogrids. The goal of this dissertation was to assess their effectiveness as a slope erosion protection system and to obtain some performance criteria under overflow conditions created through full-scale laboratory testing on a hydraulic model. Waterflow discharge, flow thickness and mean (horizontal) velocity measurements were acquired at one location on the landside slope channel (1V:4H) (near the downward edge of the slope). These measurements allowed to estimate shear stress ranges at the bed channel and Manning’s roughness coefficients. Some tentative empirical equations were presented correlating shear stress and flow thickness estimations with overflowing discharges. The results are strictly limited to the tested coarse-grained soil and rolled erosion control products as well as the range of tested hydraulic parameters possible to be attained on the hydraulic model. The experimental study mainly allowed to obtain some qualitative conclusions, in which it was proven that a reinforced surface soil layer with synthetic mats of a dike slope can withstand higher overflowing discharges than bare soil, without catastrophic sediment motion.
Os diques de terra são construídos um pouco por todo o mundo, quer em zonas costeiras (diques costeiros) quer em zonas fluviais (diques fluviais), com o intuito de proteger a população, as infraestruturas e outros recursos de elevados níveis de água provocados por tempestades e cheias sazonais. A grande maioria destes aterros de proteção de cheias não estão preparados para resistir à erosão superficial provocada na sua crista e talude de jusante pelo galgamento da água e respetivo escoamento sobre os mesmos, e como tal, podem estar em risco de rotura. A mitigação dos danos induzidos num dique pelo galgamento pode ser conseguida por via da proteção da camada superficial de solo sobre a crista e talude de jusante. Existe uma enorme variedade de materiais para proteção contra a erosão (enrocamento, betão, geossintéticos, etc.) que podem variar desde soluções mais pesadas e rígidas a soluções mais leves e flexíveis. A presente dissertação foca-se em sistemas de reforço leves, flexíveis e compostos por redes/tapetes poliméricos tais como as mantas/tapetes de reforço (Turf Reinforcement Mats) e geogrelhas (geogrids). O objetivo principal da dissertação consistiu em avaliar a aplicabilidade destes materiais como sistemas de controlo de erosão, e obter dados relativos ao seu desempenho perante uma situação de galgamento/escoamento criada num modelo hidráulico à escala real. Os valores do caudal escoado, as alturas de água e velocidades médias do escoamento foram medidos numa determinada secção do canal (com inclinação 1V:4H) do modelo hidráulico (secção próxima da zona de transição entre o canal inclinado e o canal horizontal). Estas medições permitiram estimar gamas de valores da tensão de corte aplicada na superfície do canal e do coeficiente de rugosidade de Manning. Algumas equações empíricas (de caráter provisório) foram apresentadas, relacionando a tensão de corte e alturas de água com o caudal escoado. Os resultados obtidos são exclusivamente válidos para o material granular e os produtos em rolo para controlo de erosão (Rolled Erosion Control Products) testados, bem como para a gama de parâmetros hidráulicos proporcionados pelo modelo hidráulico. O estudo experimental permitiu obter principalmente conclusões qualitativas, nas quais ficou comprovado que o reforço de uma camada superficial de solo com Rolled Erosion Control Products permite resistir a caudais superiores, em comparação com uma camada de solo simples, sem que se verifique transporte pronunciado de partículas de solo.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008.
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: B, page: 7009. Adviser: Rahim Benekohal. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-151) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

In the early 1960s, African-American residents of southwest Georgia cooperated with organizers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to launch a freedom movement that would attempt to battle white supremacy and bring all Americans closer to their country's democratic ideals. Movement participants tried to overcome the fear ingrained in them by daily life in the Jim Crow South, and to reconstruct American society from within. Working within a tradition of black insurgency, participants attempted to understand the origins of the intimidation and powerlessness that they often felt, and to form a strong community based on mutual respect, equality, and trust. Black women played fundamental roles in shaping this movement and African-American resistance patterns more generally, and struggles such as the southwest Georgia movement reveal the ways in which black people have identified themselves as American citizens, equated citizenship with political participation, and reinterpreted American democratic traditions along more just and inclusive lines. This thesis begins with a narrative of the movement. It then moves on to discuss SNCC's efforts to build community solidarity and empower African-American residents of southwest Georgia, and to consider the notion that SNCC owed its success to the activism of local women and girls. Next, it proposes that in the southwest Georgia movement there was no clear distinction between public and private space and work, and it suggests that activism in the movement emerged from traditional African-American patterns of family and community organization. Finally, this thesis asserts that the mass jail-ins for which the movement became famous redefined and empowered the movement community. This analysis reconsiders the analytical categories with which scholars generally study social movements. Instead of employing a linear narrative structure that emphasizes formal political activity and specific tactical victories, this thesis suggests that political participation takes diverse forms and it highlights the cycles of community building and individual empowerment that characterize grassroots organizing. It underscores the sheer difficulty of initiating and sustaining a mass struggle, and argues that the prerequisite to forming an insurgent movement is the ability of individuals to envision alternative social and cultural possibilities.