Preservation Photography

Photography exhibit that weaves together the history of photography, the history of historic preservation, and the career of a preservation photographer with the Historic American Buildings Survey, the late Jack Boucher. The preservation of the built environment relies upon the photographic image. Preservationists use photography to document conditions at particular moments in time and to make aesthetic and emotional cases for the veneration and preservation of buildings through compelling, nostalgic, or critical visual rhetoric. Though photographic technology has changed, the importance of photography to preservation remains undiminished. 2017/12/07 - 2018/03/0

Redlining Virginia: The Home Owner's Loan Corporation and Racial Segregation

This exhibit explores the actions of Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) in Virginia and its impact on Virginia cities. Congress created the HOLC in 1933 to rescue the real estate industry and restructure the home mortgage market. The HOLC promoted racial covenants in deeds to prevent mixed-race neighborhoods and created color-coded maps of American cities that made race a key factor in assessing financial risk. 2016/12/07 - 2017/02/1

The Gerrymander: The politics of redistricting

Gerrymandering is as old as Congress itself. Patrick Henry, the anti-federalist governor of Virginia, drew a Congressional district from five counties -- Orange, Albemarle, Spotsylvania, Louisa, and Culpeper -- to try to dilute federalist support for James Madison in 1788, the first Congressional election. The term gerrymander comes from an 1812 cartoon depicting a legislative district in Massachusetts devised by governor Elbridge Gerry that snaked through several counties inland from Salisbury. One newspaperman said it looked like a salamander, while a cartoonist called it “a Gerrymander,” and drew the cartoon that is the featured image of the exhibit. In an era of partisan polarization, the specter of the gerrymander looms over American politics, at multiple levels. Redistricting is a legal process of reshaping geographical districts to keep up with a changing and moving population, but gerrymandering draws district boundaries to favor one party. This exhibit, by students in the graduate course in Digital History, uses spatial research techniques and digital media with historical research to explore some of the issues of federal and local gerrymandering. 2019/04/15 - 2019/07/0

New Town: Across the Color Line

“Remembering New Town” is an exhibit project intended to describe and interpret one of Blacksburg’s African American neighborhoods. It will focus most heavily on the period 1900 to 1940. The exhibit is part of the VT Public History program’s ongoing engagement with local history and public audiences. In particular, VT PH makes efforts to excavate and bring to light the history of lost, forgotten, or marginalized groups and events. The New Town community was founded and grew along with VAMC/VPI through the better part of a century and eventually dissolved as Virginia Tech grew into the large university it is today. Virginia Tech led redevelopment of the area in the early 2000s and most of the traces of New Town are now lost to the history. The African American community was central to Montgomery County and Blacksburg history. Especially since New Town was so proximate to VT, this history will be of great interest to the VT community. Finally, this exhibit will emphasize the geography and spatial dynamics of New Town, which will lend itself to an engaging and experiential exhibit form. 2015/10/05 - 2015/11/2

Stories from the Great War: VPI in WWI

Exhibit focusing on the role of Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI) students and alumni who served in World War I. “Stories from the Great War: VPI Men in the Service of Their Country, 1917-1918” tells the stories of nine VPI alumni who fought on the battlefields of the Western Front during the last months of World War I. Between April 1917 and November 1918, around 1,000 students and alumni from Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI) served their country during World War One. VPI students and alumni were among some of the first soldiers to arrive in France during the spring of 1918, almost a year after the United States declared war on Germany. “VPI men” fought in all three major American offensives on the Western Front in France- the Aisne-Marne Offensive, the Battle of St. Mihiel, and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. 2017/04/04 - 2017/05/1

Thermo-mechanical aging of NBR: application to O-rings used in the braking system of the French high-speed train

National audienc

Aging characterization of different nitrile butadiene rubbers for sealing in a pneumatic system: Linking the change of the physicochemical state to the mechanical properties

International audienceNitrile butadiene rubbers (NBR) are widely used in sealing applications, such as O-rings inside the pneumatic system of the French high-speed train (TGV). In this application, a strong hardening of the NBRs alters the sealing function. Predicting the evolution of the mechanical properties during service life, especially the material hardening, is therefore a strategic issue to optimize time in maintenance operations of the TGV's pneumatic system. The main goal of this study is to reproduce the aging observed on a train's pneumatic system by performing thermo-oxidative accelerated aging tests with different commercial nitrile rubbers at several temperatures and up to 2016 h. After achieving similar degradation to specimens aged on trains, aging mechanisms and effects have been investigated through different characterization techniques: infrared spectroscopy, swelling tests, X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis, and micro-hardness measurements. The results obtained enabled us to identify and to relate aging mechanisms to aging conditions and to precisely determine and quantify the effects of physicochemical state evolution on the mechanical properties of each NBR considered. Extra crosslinks and oxidative functionalities form in the different elastomers, making them hard and brittle, and thus impacting the sealing function

A Prior High-Intensity Exercise Bout Attenuates the Vascular Dysfunction Resulting From a Prolonged Sedentary Bout

Background: This study sought to determine the impact of an acute prior bout of high-intensity interval aerobic exercise on attenuating the vascular dysfunction associated with a prolonged sedentary bout. Methods: Ten young (24 ± 1 y) healthy males completed two 3-hour sessions of prolonged sitting with (SIT-EX) and without (SIT) a high-intensity interval aerobic exercise session performed immediately prior. Prior to and 3 hours into the sitting bout, leg vascular function was assessed with the passive leg movement technique, and blood samples were obtained from the lower limb to evaluate changes in oxidative stress (malondialdehyde and superoxide dismutase) and inflammation (interleukin-6). Results: No presitting differences in leg vascular function (assessed via passive leg movement technique-induced hyperemia) were revealed between conditions. After 3 hours of prolonged sitting, leg vascular function was significantly reduced in the SIT condition, but unchanged in the SIT-EX. Lower limb blood samples revealed no alterations in oxidative stress, antioxidant capacity, or inflammation in either condition. Conclusions: This study revealed that lower limb vascular dysfunction was significantly attenuated by an acute presitting bout of high-intensity interval aerobic exercise. Further analysis of lower limb blood samples revealed no changes in circulating oxidative stress or inflammation in either condition.</jats:p