Going Green for Less: Cost-Effective Alternative Energy Sources

Canadian governments have many renewable energy programs in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But which ones are the most cost-effective use of taxpayers' money? The authors conduct an audit to find out.growth, innovation, renewable energy, GHG emissions

Colourful stories: exploring the transformative potential of colour culture in a Northumbrian mining town

2014 will see the opening of a new £100m factory in Ashington, a former mining town in Northumbria, UK. The global paint manufacturer AkzoNobel wants to ensure its investment creates not only regeneration through employment but also broader, long-term health and wellbeing improvements, through the life-enhancing qualities of colour. Committed to transforming lives through colour, they are continually striving for innovative ways to engage local communities in transformative application of colour to the built environment. This paper describes successes of the firm’s global Let’s Colour programme, as well as the Northumberland project, its methodology, preliminary findings and proposals. The best will be developed and implemented over three years from 2014

Parity-violation in elastic electron scattering: A first measurement of the parity-violating asymmetry at Q2 = 0.631 (GeV/c)2 at backward angle

The goal of Experiment E04-115 (the G0 backward angle measurement) at Jefferson Lab is to investigate the contributions of strange quarks to the fundamental properties of the nucleon. The experiment measures parity-violating asymmetries in elastic electron scattering off hydrogen and quasielastic electron scattering off deuterium at backward angles at Q2 = 0.631 (GeV/c)2 and Q 2 = 0.232 (GeV/c)2. The backward angle measurement represents the second phase of the G0 experiment. The first phase, Experiment E00-006 (the G0 forward angle experiment), measured parity-violating asymmetries in elastic electron scattering off hydrogen at forward angles over a Q 2 range of 0.1-1.0 (GeV/c)2. The experiments used a polarized electron beam and unpolarized hydrogen and deuterium liquid targets. From these measurements, along with the electromagnetic form factors, one can extract the contribution of the strange quark to the proton\u27s charge and magnetization distributions.;This thesis represents a first measurement of a parity-violating asymmetry in elastic electron scattering at Q2 = 0.631 (GeV/c) 2 off hydrogen at backward angles. This work is based on data obtained during the first part of the run, beginning in March 2006 and ending in May 2006. During this period, a total of 15 C of beam charge was accumulated. The total accumulated charge represents about 15% of the 110 C which was proposed for this Q2. The measured asymmetry is A = (-47.4 +/- 7.1 +/- 5.9 +/- 11.8) ppm, where the first uncertainty is due to statistics, the second uncertainty is systematic, and the third uncertainty is associated with the blinding factor. This result is consistent with a zero contribution from the strange quarks. The helicity-correlated beam properties and slopes are under adequate control for the final precision of the experiment

INDOT Hydraulics Process Modernization and Policy Updates

This session presents the history of bridge preservation projects and how we arrived at our current policy. Together we will discuss the development of the Hydraulics Request Application, demonstrate its use for INDOT’s hydraulic design, and review application submissions

Improving Access to Books for Young School-age Children One Library at a Time

Johnson and Donham (2012) found that Iowa elementary school library check out policies for young children did not always support early literacy development because of their being overly restrictive concerning the number of books children could borrow each week. A state-wide survey of Idaho elementary school library staff revealed similar challenges. Preschoolers, kindergarteners, and 1st graders were not being given adequate access to books. A state-wide grant program was developed and implemented that provided funds for collection development while stipulating the implementation of less restrictive check out policies for young children. Results from the grant program are reported along with future plans and recommendations for others wanting to implement similar programs

The first frost in the Pipe Nebula

Spectroscopic studies of ices in nearby star-forming regions indicate that ice mantles form on dust grains in two distinct steps, starting with polar ice formation (H2O rich) and switching to apolar ice (CO rich). We test how well the picture applies to more diffuse and quiescent clouds where the formation of the first layers of ice mantles can be witnessed. Medium-resolution near-infrared spectra are obtained toward background field stars behind the Pipe Nebula. The water ice absorption is positively detected at 3.0 micron in seven lines of sight out of 21 sources for which observed spectra are successfully reduced. The peak optical depth of the water ice is significantly lower than those in Taurus with the same visual extinction. The source with the highest water-ice optical depth shows CO ice absorption at 4.7 micron as well. The fractional abundance of CO ice with respect to water ice is 16+7-6 %, and about half as much as the values typically seen in low-mass star-forming regions. A small fractional abundance of CO ice is consistent with some of the existing simulations. Observations of CO2 ice in the early diffuse phase of a cloud play a decisive role in understanding the switching mechanism between polar and apolar ice formation.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, accepted by A&