Literatura científica selecionada sobre o tema "City and town life – New York (State) – New York"

Abstract This brief article summarizes the life and work of Dr. Doren Leslie Slade (1945-2019) while honoring her legacy, as she stands as a role model of an eclectic applied anthropologist turned psychoanalyst. She conducted intensive field research among the Nahuat of the North Sierra of Mexico's state of Puebla, concentrating on the town of Chignautla. Her focus was on aspects of the Chignautecos' quotidian corpus of beliefs – which she defined as their cosmology - that have survived for centuries, as she narrated it originally in her doctoral dissertation for the University of Pittsburgh. Years later, back home in New York City, Doren became one of the few anthropologists to obtain the difficult license to provide psychoanalytic therapy in the U.S. Then, in 1992, she published a landmarking thick ethnographic book based on her field research, but also armed with her new insights, if retrospectively, as an experienced practicing psychoanalyst. Her multi-faceted professional career is exemplary of an applied/practicing anthropologist.

The traditional culture existing in the city experienced considerable changes in the course of the last century. Rather than comprising continuous, gradual development, this change involved several radical cultural shifts, taking place in the 20th century (e. g. in the beginning of the century, in the 1960s, and 1990s). The article compares the urban, social and cultural changes in order to determine periods when the traditional culture experienced the most crucial transformations and when various new phenomena appeared. A clear shift in the urban culture took place in the 1960s in Lithuania, when a political “warming” of sorts could be felt and the pressure of the communist ideology was somewhat lighter. The economic growth was followed by the formation of the consumer society (although a rather different one from that emerging in the liberal countries), taking place in Vilnius, Kaunas, and other cities. The 1960s and the subsequent decades were characterized by a considerable variety of the urban culture in Lithuania, especially in its capital city. In the musical sphere, the state-supported academic music, the professionally performed folk music, and the show music were particularly thriving; but performances of jazz, rock and authentic folklore also gained momentum.The Lithuanian Folklore Theater, which started its activity in 1968 in Vilnius, can be presented as a typical example of the altered tradition. Director of this theater Povilas Mataitis and his wife, scenographer Dalia Mataitienė managed to achieve a subtle harmony between the folk tradition and their individual artistic expression, uniting in their performances elements of folklore and the modern art, and using small artistic forms, so typical to the folk art, to create complicate ambivalent compositions. Nevertheless, the stylistic shifts of the 1960s were best reflected in the rock music. The swinging two-part rhythm and open expressions of the individual feelings embodied a radical stylistic change at that time (although such means of expression are completely common and trivial today). Starting from the 1960s these innovations affected not only the urban composers, but also the folksong creators at the countryside.The significant cultural shift took place also after the Lithuanian independence was regained in 1990. The Soviet past was rejected, the Western notion of culture was willingly adopted, and the patterns of cultural life and financing were increasingly altered. The formerly state-supported cultural institutions and performers had to adapt to the free-market. At first, the cultural shift of the 1990s resembled an avalanche: the former unified whole – the coherent image of the national culture created during the Soviet times was shattered. Composers and authors plagued by various difficulties found respite, though, in the new kinds of the available information, the opened possibilities of getting to know the global culture, which had been hitherto almost impossible to gain access to. The epoch of postmodernity, characterized by free associations between various historical and cultural signs, was favorable to the continuation of traditions; therefore various transformations of folklore quickly appeared, musical styles from different periods and nations were abundant, and all sorts of their hybrids were created. A new thing establishing itself on the Vilnius pavement was hip hop – the Afro-American music and life style, born in the suburbs of New York. It was increasingly adopted and furthered by the Vilnius inhabitants, born in the concrete districts of the city, whose youth coincided with the years of the post-Soviet economic “shock-therapy”.The traditional music found its place in the city as well, growing as a moss on a stone. It is now performed both in the great ceremonious halls and in the small, stuffy premises, or simply outside during spring and summer. The city of the 21st century is characterized by such cultural phenomena as urban folklore, bard songs, live music, street music, post-folklore, indigenous culture, Baltic music, pagan art, improvisational music, underground music, etc. Urban tradition is a multifaceted and a multileveled one, its continuation constantly involves connecting different musical styles and respective communities.In the urban environment, the preservation of the folk music is no longer the concern of exclusively the representatives of the folklore movement; authors of different kinds are also involved, including the jazz and rock musicians, visual artists, IT specialists, and actors. Nowadays, the third generation is gradually involved into the urban folklore movement, as its pioneers, having already become grandparents, bring their grandchildren into the same halls and yards of the Old Town, where they used to perform in their youth. At the same time, new cultural wave created by the contemporary young people rises from the underground clubs, multimedia or electronic music labs, and artistic workshops. The young keep always creating something new, but this should not be regarded as a threat to the preservation of the urban folk tradition.

Noise pollution is one of the topmost quality of life issues for urban residents in the United States. Continued exposure to high levels of noise has proven effects on health, including acute effects such as sleep disruption, and long-term effects such as hypertension, heart disease, and hearing loss. To investigate and ultimately aid in the mitigation of urban noise, a network of 55 sensor nodes has been deployed across New York City for over two years, collecting sound pressure level (SPL) and audio data. This network has cumulatively amassed over 75 years of calibrated, high-resolution SPL measurements and 35 years of audio data. In addition, high frequency telemetry data have been collected that provides an indication of a sensors’ health. These telemetry data were analyzed over an 18-month period across 31 of the sensors. It has been used to develop a prototype model for pre-failure detection which has the ability to identify sensors in a prefail state 69.1% of the time. The entire network infrastructure is outlined, including the operation of the sensors, followed by an analysis of its data yield and the development of the fault detection approach and the future system integration plans for this.

As Tirana is experiencing probably the biggest building boom in its history, including the planning and building of a number of high-rise buildings, it seems fitting to find out which lessons can be learned from the city where the building type of the skyscraper originated. New York City hosted the buildings that claimed to be the world’s tallest for 66 consecutive years. It began with the Singer Building, followed by the Metropolitan Life, the Woolworth Building and then, of course, after brief interludes from 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building held the title for 40 years, followed by the World Trade Center. Then the title went to Chicago for 25 years with the Sears (now Willis) Tower, on to Kuala Lumpur with the Petronas Towers and Taipei with Taipei 101 and finally, as we all know, to Dubai. New York City is also the place where a unique and comprehensive, ever changing legal framework has shaped skyscrapers’ forms and urban positions since 1916. That is the year when the Setback Law was introduced as part of the city’s Zoning plan. It mandated that floors step back from the cornice height upwards under a certain angle, determined by the width of the street and the particular area of the city, its zone. Imaginary “sky exposure planes” would limit upwards growth, which Hugh Ferriss beautifully illustrated in a sequence of drawings in 1922, as a natural force at work.

I was born and raised in the old mining town of Barrio DAS (Don Andres Soriano), Lutopan, Toledo City where Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp. (ACMDC) is situated. Dad started his practice in the company’s hospital as an EENT specialist in the early 60’s and was the ‘go to’ EENT Doc not only of nearby towns or cities (including Cebu City) but also the surrounding provinces in the early 70’s. In my elementary years, he was Assistant Director of ACMDC Hospital (we lived just behind in company housing, only a 3-minute walk). I grew interested in what my dad did, sometimes staying in his clinic an hour or so after school, amazed at how efficiently he handled his patients who always felt so satisfied seeing him. At the end of the day, there was always ‘buyot’ (basket) of vegetables, live chickens, freshwater crabs, crayfish, catfish or tilapia. I wondered if he went marketing earlier, but knew he was too busy for that (and mom did that) until I noticed endless lines of patients outside and remembered when he would say: “Being a doctor here - you’ll never go hungry!” I later realized they were PFs (professional fees) of his patients. As a company doctor, Dad received a fixed salary, free housing, utilities, gasoline, schooling for kids and a company car. It was the perfect life! The company even sponsored his further training in Johns-Hopkins, Baltimore, USA. A family man, he loved us so much and was a bit of a joker too, especially at mealtimes. Dad’s daily routine was from 8 am – 5 pm and changed into his tennis, pelota, or badminton outfit. He was the athlete, winning trophies and medals in local sports matches. Dad wanted me to go to the University of the Philippines (UP) High School in the city. I thought a change of environment would be interesting, but I would miss my friends. Anyway, I complied and there I started to understand that my dad was not just an EENT practicing in the Mines but was teaching in Cebu Institute of Medicine and Cebu Doctors College of Medicine (CDCM) and was a consultant in most of the hospitals in Cebu City. And still he went back up to the mountains, back to Lutopan, our mining town where our home was. The old ACMDC hospital was replaced with a new state-of-the-art hospital now named ACMDC Medical Center, complete with Burn Unit, Trauma center and an observation deck in the OR for teaching interns from CDCM. Dad enjoyed teaching them. Most of them are consultants today who are so fond of my dad that they always send their regards when they see me. My dad loved making model airplanes, vehicles, etc. and I realized I had that skill when I was 8 years old and I made my first airplane model. He used to build them out of Balsa wood which is so skillful. I can’t be half the man he was but I realized this hobby enhanced his surgical skills. My dad was so diplomatic and just said to get an engineering course before you become a pilot (most of dads brothers are engineers). I actually gave engineering a go, but after 1 ½ years I realized I was not cut out for it. I actually loved Biology and anything dealing with life and with all the exposure to my dad’s clinic and hospital activities … med school it was! At this point, my dad was already President of the ORL Central Visayas Chapter and was head of ENT Products and Hearing Center. As a graduate of the UP College of Medicine who finished Otorhinolaryngology residency with an additional year in Ophthalmology as one of the last EENTs to finish in UP PGH in the late 50’s, he hinted that if I finished my medical schooling in CDCM that I consider Otorhinolaryngology as a residency program and that UP-PGH would be a good training center. I ended up inheriting the ORL practice of my dad mostly, who taught me some of Ophthalmology outpatient procedures. Dad showed me clinical and surgical techniques in ENT management especially how to deal with patients beyond being a doctor! You don’t learn this in books but from experience. I learned a lot from my dad. Just so lucky I guess! He actually designed and made his own ENT Treatment Unit, which I’m still using to this day (with some modifications of my own). And he created a certain electrically powered ‘eye magnet’ with the help of my cousin (who’s an engineer now in Chicago) which can attract metallic foreign bodies from within the eyeball to the surface so they can easily be picked out – it really works! Dad loved to travel in his younger years especially abroad for conventions or just simply leisure or vacations, most of the time with my mom. But as he was getting older, travels became uncomfortable. His last travel with me was in 2012 for the AAO-HNS Convention in Washington DC. It was a great time as we then proceeded to a US Navy Airshow in nearby Virginia after the convention, meeting up with my brother who is retired from the USN. Then we took the train to New York and stayed with my sister who is a PICU nurse in NY Presbyterian. Then off to Missouri and Ohio visiting the National Museum of the US Air Force, the largest military aircraft museum in the world. For years, Dad had been battling with heredofamilial-hypercholesterolemia problem which took its toll on his liver and made him weak and tired but still he practiced and continued teaching and sharing his knowledge until he retired at the age of 80. By then, my wife and I would take him and my mom out on weekends, he loved to be driven around and eat in different places. I really witnessed and have seen how he suffered from his illness in his final years. But he never showed it or complained, never even wanted to use a cane! He didn’t want to be a burden to anyone. What most affected me was that my dad passed and I wasn’t even there. I had helped call for a physician to rush to the house and had oxygen cylinders to be brought for him as his end stage liver cirrhosis was causing cardio-pulmonary complications (non-COVID). Amidst all this I was the one admitted for 14 days because of COVID-19 pneumonia. My dad passed away peacefully at home as I was being discharged from the hospital. He was 88. I never reached him just to say good bye and cried when I reached home still dyspneic recovering from the viral pneumonia. I realized from my loved ones who told me that dad didn’t want me to stress out taking care of him, as I’ve been doing ever since, but instead to rest and recuperate myself. I cried again with that thought. In my view, he was not only a great Physician and Surgeon but also the greatest Dad. He lived a full life and touched so many lives with his treatments, charity services and teaching new physicians. It’s seeing, remembering and carrying on what he showed and taught us that really makes us miss him. I really love and miss my dad and with a smile on my face, I see he’s also happy to be with his brothers and sisters who passed on ahead. And that he’s rested. He is a man content, I remember he always said this, ‘ As long as I have a roof over my head and a bed to rest my back, I’m okay!”

Aim: To examine the economic impact of lives lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic across New York State. Materials & methods: Death counts by age range and period life expectancy were extracted from the NYS Department of Health, NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and Social Security Administration website. Years of potential life lost and value of statistical life (VSL) were calculated. Results: The average years of potential life lost per person was 12.72 and 15.13, and the VSL was US$119.62 and 90.45 billion, in NYS and NYC, respectively. VSL was greatest in Queens and Brooklyn, followed by the Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island. Conclusion: New York City, specifically Queens and Brooklyn, bore the greatest economic burden of lives lost across the state.

BackgroundJail incarceration rates are positively associated with mortality at the county level. However, incarceration rates vary within counties, limiting the generalisability of this finding to neighbourhoods, where incarceration may have the greatest effects.MethodsWe performed a cross-sectional analysis of census tract-level state imprisonment rates in New York State (2010) and life expectancy data from the US Small-area Life Expectancy Estimates Project (2010–2015). We modelled fixed-effects for counties and controlled for tract-level poverty, racial makeup, education, and population density from the American Community Survey (2010–2014), and violent crime data from the New York City Police Department (2010). We also examined interactions between incarceration rate and poverty, racial makeup, and population density on life expectancy.ResultsLife expectancy at the highest quintile of incarceration was 5.5 years lower than in the lowest quintile, and over 2 years lower in a fully-adjusted model. Census tract-level poverty and racial makeup both moderated the association between incarceration and life expectancy.ConclusionCensus tract-level incarceration is associated with lower life expectancy. Decarceration, including alternatives to incarceration, and release of those currently incarcerated, may help to improve life expectancy at the neighbourhood level.

ABSTRACTThe September 11, 2001, attack on New York City was the largest human-made disaster in United States history. In the first few days after the attack, it became clear that the scope of the attacks (including loss of life, property damage, and financial strain) was unprecedented and that the attacks could result in substantial psychological sequelae in the city population. Researchers at the Center for Urban Epidemiologic Studies at the New York Academy of Medicine designed and implemented an assessment of the mental health of New Yorkers 5—8 weeks after the attacks. To implement this research in the immediate postdisaster period, researchers at the center had to develop, in a compressed time interval, new academic collaborations, links with potential funders, and unique safeguards for study respondents who may have been suffering from acute psychological distress. Results of the assessment contributed to a New York state mental health needs assessment that secured Federal Emergency Management Agency funding for mental health programs in New York City. This experience suggests that mechanisms should be in place for rapid implementation of mental health assessments after disasters.

Nursing home patients have a constitutional right to refuse treatment. The Patient Self-Determination Act confirmed that right. State laws address the obligations of health care providers and facilities to honor that right. The New York State law is more specific than those of many other states. It allows exemptions for “reasons of conscience” and imposes a number of requirements on nursing homes claiming such an exemption, including the transfer of a patient to a home that will honor an end-of-life wish. This study, conducted by FRIA,1 investigated the refusal of some nursing homes in New York City to carry out patients' end-of-life wishes because of conscience-based objections. The study also investigated the willingness of homes which did not have such policies to accept patients transferring from a home with a policy so that the patient's end-of-life wishes would be honored. Implications for administrators, policy makers, and regulators are discussed.

Abstract This article examines the literary geography of Edith Wharton’s Jazz Age New York in Twilight Sleep. It considers the impact of the urban narrative upon the characters, and how this work can be understood as a spatial event. Sheila Hones describes literary geography as the interdisciplinary nexus between literary studies and geography. Building upon this definition, the author extends the interdisciplinarity of narrative spatiality toward the medical humanities. Edith Wharton’s New York is embodied, possessing its own animus like an automaton, being simultaneously alive and dead, dazzling yet breathless, killing but beautiful. There is a sickness to the city which impacts most of the major characters, either physically or mentally. Using the epigraph as a framework, this article offers an innovative consideration of the relationship between fictional place and mental state, highlighting Edith Wharton’s use of space and place in Twilight Sleep to warn of the danger New York represented to female mental health.

In the early years of the twenty-first century, New York City lost its soul. Some people doubt that the city ever had a soul, because New York has always grown by shedding its past, tearing down old neighborhoods and erecting new ones in their place, usually in a bare-faced struggle for financial gain. Others just shrug because, today, all big cities are erasing their gritty, bricks-and-mortar history to build a shiny vision of the future. Beijing, Shanghai, and other Chinese cities are clearing out the narrow, rundown alleys in their center, removing longtime residents to the distant edges of town, and replacing small, old houses with expensive apartments and new skyscrapers of spectacular design. Liverpool and Bilbao have torn down their abandoned waterfronts and turned aging docks and warehouses into modern art museums. In London, Paris, and New York artists and gentrifiers move into old immigrant areas, praising the working-class bars and take-out joints but overwhelming them with new cafés and boutiques, which are soon followed by brand-name chain stores. A universal rhetoric of upscale growth, based on both the economic power of capital and the state and the cultural power of the media and consumer tastes, is driving these changes and exposing a conflict between city dwellers’ desire for authentic origins—a traditional, mythical desire for roots—and their new beginnings: the continuous reinvention of communities. To speak of a city being authentic at all may seem absurd. Especially in a global capital like New York, neither people nor buildings have a chance to accumulate the patina of age. Most residents are not born there, neither do they live in the same house for generations, and the physical fabric of the city is constantly changing around them. In fact, all over the world, “Manhattanization” signifies everything in a city that is not thought to be authentic: high-rise buildings that grow taller every year, dense crowds where no one knows your name, high prices for inferior living conditions, and intense competition to be in style.

Abstract The disdain of city people for their country cousins is an ancient story that reoccurs in every urbanizing society. The perennial drama was played out in the century and a half from the emergence of the early industrial city in the United States, through its evolution into a metropolis in the decades around 1900, its maturing after 1920, and its decentralization after the late 1940s down to the present time. The cultural and political conflict between the City of New York and upstate is a classic case in point. The cultural conflict between the center and the periphery arising from these changes was widely reflected in literature and folklore, including the slang of the day. City people expressed their contempt for rural and small-town people and places with more than a hundred pejorative names. Some of the oldest terms are borrowed from British English and were given new turns of meaning in the American urban setting.

Abstract The garbage wars began in the 1990s when New York City found that it was running out of room to store its trash. At first it may have seemed like a simple problem, nothing that could not be solved by a fleet of tractor-trailers carrying garbage to open spaces further south and west. If only Virginia’s Gov. James S. Gilmore had not spoken up. “The home state of Washington, Jefferson and Madison has no intention of becoming New York’s dumping grounds,” he declared.1 New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani responded that accepting some trash was a small price to pay for the enormous cultural benefits that tourists from all across the nation experienced when they came to town on vacation.

This chapter, “From Olive Groves to Hell’s Kitchen,” examines Callas’s experiences during early childhood in New York City that left her with permanent psychological vulnerabilities. Having been deprived of adequate parental input during a critical developmental stage and growing up in a family beset by conflict exacerbated by a move from a provincial town in Greece to New York City, Maria found it hard to compensate later in life for her egocentrism and her lack of empathy. Callas’s adult life can be construed as an unrelenting pursuit of the psychological bounties she was deprived of in childhood. It is not accidental that Callas’s strength as an opera performer lay largely in her insatiable need for adulation from the audience (mirroring) and that her relationships with the significant men in her life were characterized by idealization.

The chapter focuses on the career and lives of the B-52’s. It opens with Hale’s recollections of meeting Jeremy Ayers of the B-52’s. Ayers, like other suburban and small-town kids who lived in the university town, modeled an essential bohemian act—he made his life into art. Cross-dressing and drag were an important part of the “scene” in both Athens and New York, where many members of the “scene” had connections. Athens was a place, like New York or San Francisco, that drew “small-town eccentrics,” and it started to reflect their sensibilities and interests. By the mid-1980s, what was happening in Athens proved that people did not have to move to the big city to live an alternative life. The B-52’s started finding success in New York—playing to and with their audiences’ expectations about southerners. With their lyrics, performances, and music videos, the band also managed to buck the growing conservatism that was shutting down the seventies’ sexual revolution.

The chapter discusses why and when Indian delegations went to cities. To demonstrate that Indian visitors were a regular and frequent presence, it provides multiple examples of Indian delegations to colonial and early Republic cities. It describes their experiences on the road, the receptions they received, and the measures colonial officials took to ensure that their visits were positive. It considers delegates’ initial responses to the urban environment. As a case study, the second part of the chapter focuses on the history of Creek delegations to colonial cities, culminating in the famous state visit in 1790 by Alexander McGillivray and some two dozen Creek chiefs to the then capital, New York City.

During this period, black men voted freely throughout the state, constituting a major bloc of voters in New York city, and in upstate towns such as Hudson. Black leaders like Joseph Sidney were outspoken Federalists, because that party was tied to both emancipation via Governor John Jay and the defence of black voting rights by figures like Stephen Van Rensselaer, the last “Patroon” and American’s richest man. In the ‘Teens, Jeffersonian Republicans and future Democrats, including Martin Van Buren and the Tammany editor Mordecai Noah, began a long campaign to shift the balance of power in the state by disfranchising black voters, culminating in the 1821 constitutional convention instituting a $250 “freehold” property requirement for men of color.

Geographical distance shaped the unconventional courtship between Madie Hall and Alfred Xuma and allowed Hall to refashion many of the courtship traditions that typically defined the lives of elite Black American women. This chapter delves into the mechanics of a courtship that took root in New York City, sprouted through correspondence penned on three continents, and solidified because of an abiding commitment to a mission of service. Chapter 5 also demonstrates that when Hall agreed to marry Alfred Xuma and set sail out of New York City Harbor in the middle of World War II to Cape Town, South Africa, she was embarking on the fulfillment of a personal and professional journey that had been more than a decade in the making.

This chapter assesses how New York attracted artists and inventors. On Saturday nights, culture-seeking citizens followed a well-worn path to the home of Anne Charlotte Lynch. Her soirees just off Washington Square, had transformed her into a leader of the city's literary and artistic life, attracting authors Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe. Other authors living and writing in the city included James Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville and Walt Whitman. As New Yorkers vied to be cultural leaders on par with those in Europe, the city's more sophisticated and socially conscious citizens actively supported both new and older art forms. With the growth of theaters and concert halls, actors and musicians flocked to town. The Bowery Theatre, which was owned by Thomas Hamblin, was the center of the common man's entertainment world. For entertainment aside from that offered by the theatre, New Yorkers in the 1830s and 1840s could go to places like Barnum’s American Museum or the New York Zoological Institute, located on the Bowery, to see its menagerie of animals. However, while New York brimmed with cultural life, much of the city's entertainment was restricted to white audiences. Yet despite their treatment, music and dance were one of the few ways that African Americans could express themselves within a society where most lacked basic rights.

This chapter begins by describing the redbrick buildings that emerge out of the East Village on Manhattan's East Side, the plain and unenticing facades of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village that disguise the unique slice of city life that takes place within. It talks about Stuy Town's idyllic quality that contradicts the tumultuous history that produced this middle-class enclave tucked in the midst of Manhattan. It also explains Stuy Town's roots that are planted in bitter soil as the town was born of government-backed, and subsidized, racist policies and displaced with poor New Yorkers. The chapter tells Stuy Town's story of activism, where elected officials, civil rights leaders, and tenants joined together to fight against corporate greed and unjust policies, and for the rights of New Yorkers. It recounts how Stuy Town emerged from a housing crisis in New York City that began during World War I.

The New York City Transit (NYCT) Signal Modernization Program has been ongoing since the mid-1990s. The current phase of modernization involves the procurement of Solid State Interlocking (SSI) systems that are designed to replace relay-based interlockings. SSI procurement has necessitated significant adjustments to NYCT’s system deployment processes, most notably in the areas of design, implementation, test, maintenance, and safety certification. NYCT has successfully met the challenge of applying the updated deployment processes to multiple, concurrent system procurements. The most fundamental change to the NYCT procurement approach required a shift from the traditional design-build model of acquisition for relay-based systems to a software-based development lifecycle for SSIs. The relay-based Interlocking systems’ design-build model has traditionally involved the realization of complex relay logic with well-known hardware components such as relays, trip-stops, signals and switch machines. The SSI systems’ software model however requires additional consideration of software and hardware development phases, such as designated in the V-lifecycle. V-model phases include requirement, design, implementation, and test. For SSI systems, NYCT adopted a “double” V-Life cycle approach, one V for the supplier’s SSI hardware and software (executive) platform, and one V for the SSI application (site-specific field) logic. At NYCT, the first V is dedicated to the suppliers’ executive platform. Hardware and software comprising the supplier platform are verified to meet safety and performance requirements. Safety analyses such as Fault Tree Analysis, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, Timing Analysis, and Hazard Analysis are generated by SSI suppliers. System Safety Concepts, e.g., Numerical Assurance, Checked Redundancy, Intrinsic Fail-Safety are also assessed. NYCT’s second V is dedicated to the application software, i.e., the site-specific relay-based logic, which is implemented as Boolean logic within the SSI. For the Booleans, the process of traditional circuit checking is supplemented by Model Checking, wherein NYCT General Safety Properties are used to verify the site-specific logic. Model Checking provides assurance that safety properties are met throughout the entire interlocking design, for every system state, and does not rely on a manual review process. This paper will focus on the benefits NYCT has realized as a result of adopting Model Checking as a requirement for safety certification, along with an overview of the NYCT SSI safety certification process.

There is a state of emergency in the USA- catastrophic coastal erosion, rising sea levels at the rate of one-eighth of an inch per year and poor water quality. Oysters can help. Oysters filter the water, removing toxins. Oyster reefs are living infra-structures that protect coastlines from storms and tidal surges. But…many of the world’s existing oyster reefs are functionally impaired. The Chesapeake Bay is dying. Untreated chemical run-off and human waste is creating ‘Dead Zones’ where there is no oxygen to support marine life. Much of Hurricane Sandy’s damage to New York City could have been prevented. In the early 1800’s the Harbor was lined with living oyster reefs. Now, these are dead or dying, fragile and vulnerable. Miami is flooded on a regular basis reports Miami Herald. Our oyster reefs must be revived or rebuilt- they will help. Walls are not the answer. 14% of US coastal cities have massive sea-walls already. National Geographic reports that by 2100 one-third of our coastal cities will be protected by walls, that cost billions of dollars and will not provide protection from the most severe storms. I believe in the power of the oyster. The oyster is an engineer- its reefs and shells work together as a “system of systems” to protect our waters and coastlines. Without them we are sunk, literally, no matter how many engineered systems we humans try to substitute and pay billions of dollars to implement.