Issue link: https://nebusinessmedia.uberflip.com/i/1467797
W o r c e s t e r 3 0 0 : C i t y o f I n n o v a t o r s 49 1922-2021 opportunities typically go. Deploying mathematical methods, they tried to find patterns in data and predict trends and behaviors. ey also tracked activities associated with large events, which are popular with traffickers. Building on that work, a $535K grant from the National Science Foundation focuses on using analytics and optimization to find the most efficient use of shelters and services for homeless youth in New York City. More recently in 2021, Konrad and Kyumin Lee, WPI associate professor of computer science, are part of a team working on an 18-month project- -planning research meant to detect and disrupt wildlife trafficking. Funded by a National Science Foundation grant, the team will deploy social media analytics to find illegal trade evidence and follow financial transactions associated with trafficking and identify illegal trade images and video. Two teams of WPI undergraduate data science and industrial engineering students will engage in project-based learning on this effort. Detection of animal trafficking poses challenges because it occurs concurrently with legal trade of wild animals and their products and laws differ by country according to species and cultural and traditional norms. Konrad's stated hope is that human and animal trafficking can be reduced by collaboration between scientists, law enforcement and human rights advocates, working toward the same goal. – Susan Gonsalves PHOTO | WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE Renata Konrad's technology uses math models to address human trafficking and animal poaching. T riple deckers were considered a ticket to the middle class for immigrants in post-Civil War Worcester. ey were also seen as a threat to the traditional way of life that centered on single-family homes. e post-Civil War influx of immigrants, constituted of Swedish, French Canadian, English Canadian, Irish, Polish and Lith- uanian in the late 1800s and early 1900s sought work in Worcester's burgeoning factories, among them Washburn & Moen and Norton Co. Today, they are targeted by investors, which skews the housing market upward, taking away much of the entry-level acces- sibility for the upwardly-mobile. Despite the century-plus age of most of the city's triple deckers, which face all the challenges of aging housing, cash-paying out of town- ers vie for structures sight unseen. e evolution of triple-deckers Four years ago, triple deckers constituted half of available housing in the city. at was before the apartment-building boom of the years since. e first were built on Endicott or John Street (on opposite sides of what's now I-290) in the 1850s. Others followed. An Alicide Chevalier came to the city at 19 as a carpenter, later becoming contractor for dozens of three-deckers, according to "Worcester's ree-Deck- ers" by Marilyn Spear, in her 1977 book published for the Worcester Bicentennial Commission. Between 1890 and 1900, 2,325 triple deckers were built, with hundreds more built subsequently. More than 6,000 were built in the triple decker's 75-year heyday and about 4,000 remain. e automobile ended the growth of the triple decker reign. No longer did workers need to live within walking or bus distance of their workplace. e last building permit was issued in 1932, Spear wrote. Various code violations such as lead paint and fire safety present a challenge for present-day buyers who lack sufficient funds to upgrade them – further lessening competition for cash investors. — Christina P. O'Neill Three-deckers are now described as three-unit buildings, which can be converted to condominiums and sold as three separate dwellings. In 1908, they were a steppingstone to homeownership for Worcester's working class. PHOTO | WORCESTER HISTORICAL MUSEUM