Tag: bridges

Highway Departments Find Bats Roosting Under Bridges With The Help Of Artificial Intelligence
TECHNOLOGY, VIDEO REELS

Highway Departments Find Bats Roosting Under Bridges With The Help Of Artificial Intelligence

Tianshu Li, University of Virginia The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Photographs and computer vision techniques using artificial intelligence are able to detect the presence of bats on bridges automatically with over 90% accuracy, according to our new study. More than 40 species of bats are found in the U.S., and many of them are endangered or threatened. Bats often nest by the hundreds or thousands underneath bridges, so transportation departments are required to survey for them before conducting repair or replacement projects. I conducted the recently published study with colleagues at the University of Virginia’s MOB Lab in collaboration with the Virginia Transportation Research Council. Bridge surveys are important for protecting threa...
Ruby Bridges’ School Once A Symbol Of Desegregation, Now Reflects Another Battle Engulfing Public Education
EDUCATION

Ruby Bridges’ School Once A Symbol Of Desegregation, Now Reflects Another Battle Engulfing Public Education

On Nov. 14, 1960, after a long summer and autumn of volleys between the Louisiana Legislature and the federal courts, Ruby Bridges, a 6-year-old Black girl, was allowed to enroll in an all-white school. Accompanied by federal marshals, Bridges entered William Frantz Public School – a small neighborhood school in New Orleans’ Upper Ninth Ward. If that building’s walls could talk, they certainly would tell the well-known story of its desegregation. But those same walls could tell another story, too. That story is about continued racism as well as efforts to dismantle and privatize public education in America over the past six decades. As scholars of education, we combed through multiple archives to uncover this story. A civil rights landmark News outlets covering the Ruby Bridges story pub...