Transatlantic Topographies

This first chapter explores the geographical and historical sweep of the modernist vertical imagination in both Europe and the Americas. It begins with comparisons between Franz Kafka’s imagined Amerika and Max Weber’s writings on the “spirit of capitalism” after traveling to the United States, as well as W.E.B. Du Bois’ conceptions of racial stratification and uplift after studying in Germany. From here, it considers the rise of American empire and capitalist culture in terms of industrial scale, vertical elevation, and the “technological sublime.” Key examples include Eugene Jolas’ Verticalist movement in relation to James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake; Fritz Lang’s Metropolis in relation to the rise of New York City; major writings by Vicente Huidobro, Jorge Luis Borges, Hart Crane, George Oppen, and Claude McKay; and conceptions of racial stratification, uplift, and solidarity in Richard Wright’s Native Son, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and Aimé Césaire’s Notebook of a Return to the Native Land.

Respire: Virtual Reality Art with Musical Agent Guided by Respiratory Interaction

Respire is an immersive art piece that brings together three components: an immersive virtual reality (VR) environment, embodied interaction (via a breathing sensor) and a musical agent system to generate unique experiences of augmented breathing. The breathing sensor controls the user’s vertical elevation of the point of view under and over the virtual ocean. The frequency and patterns of breathing data guide the arousal of the musical agent, and the waviness of a virtual ocean in the environment. Respire proposes an intimate exploration of breathing through an intelligent mapping of breathing data to the parameters of visual and sonic environments.

Instructions to attend to an observed action increase imitation in autistic adults

This study investigated whether reduced visual attention to an observed action might account for altered imitation in autistic adults. A total of 22 autistic and 22 non-autistic adults observed and then imitated videos of a hand producing sequences of movements that differed in vertical elevation while their hand and eye movements were recorded. Participants first performed a block of imitation trials with general instructions to imitate the action. They then performed a second block with explicit instructions to attend closely to the characteristics of the movement. Imitation was quantified according to how much participants modulated their movement between the different heights of the observed movements. In the general instruction condition, the autistic group modulated their movements significantly less compared to the non-autistic group. However, following instructions to attend to the movement, the autistic group showed equivalent imitation modulation to the non-autistic group. Eye movement recording showed that the autistic group spent significantly less time looking at the hand movement for both instruction conditions. These findings show that visual attention contributes to altered voluntary imitation in autistic individuals and have implications for therapies involving imitation as well as for autistic people’s ability to understand the actions of others.

Emphasizing Grid Feature as Flood Zonal Identification to Support Flood Relief Mechanism

Grid in Geographic Information System [GIS] mapping is used to determine specific location. This is a study to highlight the utilization of square grids network with flood forecast map modelling for regional identification of inundated zones focusing on Pekan sub-district. Satellite information, raster and digital elevation model [DEM] are used to produce a flood prediction map model to simulate inundation of the study area. Vertical elevation has been converted to match between WMGEOID04 with EGM96 ellipsoidal height for the multiple offsets of water layers in inundation simulation process because geoid and mean seal level values are set to be the same. Inundated zones are populated based on selected readings of Sungai Pahang gauging station located at Department of Irrigation and Drainage [DID] Pulau Jawa station, Bandar Pekan [Station ID: 3434401]. Flood spreads are monitored based on the 1.0m layer offsets starting from 2.5m [alert level] until 5.5m. Finally, square grids tessellation of the whole area within the boundary is generated and the affected zones are projected in different color code to indicate danger zones. The graphical output that are produced are able to be used to assess the rate of accessibility, habitability, and affected infrastructures which have the potential to act as flood relief center. Integrating these information with disaster web provider like ‘InfoBanjir’ [DID] and ‘disaster portal’ [NADMA] should be emphasized to ensure systematic flood management in the future.

The Dynamic Behavior of the Elevation Movement Mechanism of One Transfer Manipulator with Electro-Hydraulic Acting

The paper presents the results following the theoretical research of one vertical elevation mechanism regarding the dynamic behavior for one modern transfer systems, a manipulator or robot in cylindrical co-ordinates, which belongs to a molding technological module based on the hydraulic presses. Using the mathematical modeling and the computer simulation, it can identify the parameters with sensitive behavior and, finally, it can optimize the dynamic regimes according to the real requests of driving.

A Technique for Eliminating Water Returns from Lidar Beach Elevation Surveys

Airborne light detecting and ranging (lidar) systems can survey hundreds of kilometers of shoreline with high spatial resolution (several elevation estimates per square meter). Sequential surveys yield spatial change maps of beach and dune sand levels. However, lidar data include elevations of the exposed, subaerial beach and, seaward of the waterline, the ocean surface. Here, a simple method is developed to find the waterline and eliminate returns from the ocean surface. A vertical elevation cutoff is used, with the waterline elevation (W) above the known tide level because of the superelevation from wave setup and runup. During each lidar pass, the elevation cutoff (W) is assumed proportional (C) to the offshore significant wave height Hs. Comparison of in situ and lidar surveys on a moderately sloped, dissipative California beach yields C ≈ 0.4, which is qualitatively consistent with existing observations of runup and setup. The calibrated method rejects ocean surface data, while retaining subaerial beach points more than 70 m seaward of the mean high waterline, which is often used as a conservative default waterline.