Momentum: Volume 1, Issue 1

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 21
  • Publication
    US Army Field Jacket Development in Response to Material Shortages and the Exigencies of World War II
    (2012-04-18) Hwang, Tiffany
    Hwang explores how the combined power urgency and material shortages forced the US Army into a specific pattern of uniform design and development during World War II.
  • Publication
    The Rape of Nanking vs. the incident of Nanking: a Literature Review
    (2012-04-18) Man, Chi-Wei
    The Nanking Massacre has become deeply ingrained in the cultural history of both the Chinese and the Japanese; however it has taken on two perhaps contradictory narratives in each of those communities.
  • Publication
    Nor Any Drop to Drink: A Systems Approach to Water in America
    (2012-04-18) Gerstein, Hilary
    The water crisis has been a “hot topic” in recent years. By synthesizing some of the existing literature on this subject, this thesis aims to encourage Americans, particularly those people less familiar with the topic, to start thinking about water issues in a new way, specifically by thinking in systems. Drawing from Donella Meadows, Thomas Hughes and concepts such as complex adaptive systems, it frames the problems with bottled water, and the drinking water distribution system, more generally, in a particular way. More specifically, this paper analyzes the water distribution system by breaking it into two main parts––the municipal water supply and the bottled water industry––and also analyzes these components as a whole system. In addition, the paper highlights health, safety, environmental and social justice issues surrounding the nation’s failing water system. Because the water system crisis can be interpreted as a symptom of larger problems faced by society, thinking in systems for this particular case is a meaningful exercise applicable to understanding other sustainability issues.
  • Publication
    Outlaws, Bandits, Hackers
    (2012-04-18) Silcox, Calder
    Technological imperatives may once have forced the first hackers to shift their schedule to the night, but eventually the hacker subculture became inextricably linked to the night and to the outcast and outlaw imagery associated with it.
  • Publication
    A Missed Opportunity? Assessing the Likely Effectiveness of an Allied Bombing Raid on Auschwitz
    (2012-04-18) Roth, Jonathan
    What if the Allies had pursued the bombing of the extermination camps at Auschwitz? Could the Allies have put together an effective bombing campaign that would have saved a significant number of lives at the death camps?
  • Publication
    The University of Pennsylvania's Department of Mines, Arts, and Manufactures in Context
    (2012-04-18) Kearney, William S
    This paper argues that even though it was short-lived compared to its contemporary engineering schools, the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Mines was an integral part of the changing energy landscape of 19th-century Pennsylvania. In addition to walking the reader through the history of Penn's Department of Mines, the paper explains how the value of science lies not in the lone pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake, but in its application to problems of economic importance, ultimately advocating the importance of the dissemination of knowledge.
  • Publication
    Media Review: The Matrix
    (2012-04-18) Sellers-Saidi, Terrence
    This paper analyzes the film The Matrix from the perspective of hackers and describes how the film has influenced culture. The film itself analyzes technology and predicts how it may change in the future.
  • Publication
    What We Can Learn From Japan's Early Earthquake Warning System
    (2012-04-18) Yamasaki, Erika
    Japan's combination of high technology and cultural adaptation to its natural setting makes their earthquake detection systems a model for the rest of the world.
  • Publication
    A Soldier's Tale
    (2012-04-18) Marett, Paul
    This article is an annotated interview with a Vietnam War veteran in which the author attempts to highlight the role that technology played in the war. In particular, the paper explores the question of why the United States was forced to abandon the cause despite having significant technological advantages over the Vietcong and their allies.
  • Publication
    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Versus The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: A Historical Comparison of Two Philanthropic Powerhouses in Education
    (2012-04-18) Leknes, Brittany
    This project is a comparison of two young, powerful charitable foundations, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The research examines the first two decades of these two foundations through the lens of public and secondary education in their respective American time periods, politics, economics, and cultures. Although they operate in different time periods and among different main social concerns, the early actions of both the Carnegie Foundation and the Gates Foundation have approached grant-making in fundamentally similar ways to change American education. This paper first displays a brief history of charitable foundations, the problems with American public and secondary schools, and the ways that the Carnegie and Gates Foundations have chosen to address these problems. The two foundations have similar overall structures, similar problems that they aim to solve with their grant-making, and similar values of measurement and testing when making grants. Finally, both of the foundations have shifted the role of education of Americans from the local and specific and instead towards the foundations. This has raised questions of the interactions between foundations and the democratic rights of the populations that the foundations serve.