Coffee hour with Jacob Chakareski | Map sessions at Libraries | Baka talks frack

IMAGE OF THE WEEK
safecast DOE radiation maps

Carolynne Hultquist and Guideo Cervone created these maps showing the radiation measurements collected by citizens (via Safecast) and by the U. S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration after the March 2011 Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster. Safecast is a volunteered geographic information (VGI) project where the lay public uses hand-held and hand-assembled sensors to collect radiation measurements. The study found that the two data sets were highly correlated, and this high correlation makes Safecast a viable data source for detecting and monitoring radiation. Read more.

GOOD NEWS

  • Today—Jennifer Baka presents “Knowledge Cartographies: Evaluating Competing Knowledge Discourses in the U.S. Hydraulic Fracturing Rulemaking” at 4:00 p.m. in 022 Deike Building. A pre-talk coffee & cookies speaker reception takes place at 3:45 in the EMS Museum on the ground floor of Deike Building.
  • Alex Klippel and Ping Li (Department of Psychology) are participating in a new project, “Language Training in a Virtual World,” funded by the Swedish Research Council. Alex is looking forward to more visits to the old world.
  • February 2 was World Wetlands Day http://www.worldwetlandsday.org/

COFFEE HOUR

Coffee Hour: Jacob Chakareski “Drone IoT Networks for Virtual Human Teleportation”
Cyber‐physical/human systems (CPS/CHS) are set to play an increasingly visible role in our lives, advancing research and technology across diverse disciplines. I am exploring novel synergies between three emerging CPS/CHS technologies of prospectively broad societal impact, virtual/augmented reality(VR/AR), the Internet of Things (IoT), and autonomous micro‐aerial robots (UAVs). My long‐term research objective is UAV‐IoT‐deployed ubiquitous VR/AR immersive communication that can enable virtual human teleportation to any corner of the world. Thereby, we can achieve a broad range of technological and societal advances that will enhance energy conservation, quality of life, and the global economy.

NEWS

University Libraries offer maps and geospatial information sessions in February
On Wednesdays this February, and one in March, Penn State University Libraries will offer informational sessions relating to foundational map and geospatial topics. The sessions, which do not require registration, are open to all Penn State students, staff, faculty and visitors, and remote viewing is available online using Zoom. In addition, one-on-one map and geospatial research consultations are available through the Penn State Libraries Donald W. Hamer Center for Maps and Geospatial Information.

Data driven dialogue: Scientists bring groups together on water quality concerns
It’s been a decade since the start of the Marcellus Shale gas boom in Pennsylvania, and today more than 10,000 unconventional gas wells dot the state’s hills and valleys.

The industry’s rapid development created economic opportunities for many, but also brought environmental concerns, and sometimes led to contentious conversations.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

“It is the innocence which constitutes the crime”: Political geographies of white supremacy, the construction of white innocence, and the Flint water crisis.
Inwood J.F.J.
Geography Compass. 2018;e12361.
https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12361
Using the Flint, Michigan water crisis as a backdrop, this review piece explores the concept of white innocence. The concept of white innocence presents us with an analytic tool to understand the frustrating endurance of white supremacy within the U.S. settler state and how white supremacy operates through a range of geographically grounded practices. This paper makes an explicit link between work on settler colonialism and white innocence outlining how the burgeoning work on settler societies opens space to a productive engagement with the concept of innocence. I contend that white innocence as a concept needs to be more fully grounded in work that engages with settler colonialism and within the United States specifically. White innocence also inculcates the agency of whites in a society that is built through the explicit exploitation of persons of color as well as the way white institutions continue to expose persons of color to a range of negative impacts. This paper begins with a review of the literature on whiteness within geographic research. The last several years has seen a series of important interventions in the literature and geographers are increasingly turning to the concept of white supremacy to explain racism in 21st century U.S. society.

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