5,214 research outputs found
Narrative, identity, and recovery from serious mental illness: A life history of a runner
In recent years, researchers have investigated the psychological effects of exercise for people with mental health problems, often by focusing on how exercise may alleviate symptoms of mental illness. In this article I take a different tack to explore the ways in which exercise contributed a sense of meaning, purpose, and identity to the life of one individual named Ben, a runner diagnosed with schizophrenia. Drawing on life history data, I conducted an analysis of narrative to explore the narrative types that underlie Ben's stories of mental illness and exercise. For Ben, serious mental illness profoundly disrupted a pre-existing athletic identity removing agency, continuity, and coherence from his life story. By returning to exercise several years later, Ben reclaimed his athletic identity and reinstated some degree of narrative agency, continuity, and coherence. While the relationships between narrative, identity, and mental health are undoubtedly complex, Ben's story suggests that exercise can contribute to recovery by being a personally meaningful activity which reinforces identity and sense of self
Room Temperature Control During Season Switchover with Single Duct Variable Air Volume System Without Reheat
The Langford “A” building houses the College of
Architecture on TAMU campus. There are ten singleduct
variable air volume (VAV) air-handling units
(AHUs) without reheat serving the building. The
local pneumatic thermostats modulate the dampers of
VAV boxes to maintain room temperature at their
setpoints. The thermostat action is switched from
direct acting (DA) to reverse acting (RA) when the
season changes from fall to winter and vice versa
from winter to spring, based on the out side air
temperature, when season changes. This results in
various parts of the building ether too cold or too hot
during the season change. This paper presents that the
thermostat action will be switched according to
cooling loads or discharge air temperature, instead of
outside air temperature. For the interior zone,
thermostat action does not need to be switched at all.
The comfort is improved and savings is achieved by
the new control scheme. Because some air-handling
units (AHUs) serve both interior and exterior zones,
this system never worked as intended. The system
must be modified to have zone reheat and the AHUs
discharge air temperature is set below dew point for
humidity control
The Chilled Water and Hot Water Building Differential Pressure Setpoint Calculation - Chilled Water and Hot Water Pump Speed Control
More and more variable frequency devices (VFD)
are being installed on the chilled water and hot water
pumps on the TAMU campus. Those pump speeds
are varied to maintain chilled water or hot water
building deferential pressure (DP) or return
temperature or flow rate at their setpoints. The chilled
water and hot water DP setpoint or return
temperature setpoint or flow rate setpoint was a
constant value or reset based on outside air
temperature. In some buildings, the chilled water and
hot water DP setpoints were reset based on flow rate,
but in many instances those setpoint schedules were
either too low to maintain enough building DP
requirement or too high and consumed excess energy.
The building DP reset schedule based on flow rate is
studied and compared with the other pump speed
control methods. Because the building DP setpoint
based on flow rate method is achieved by tracking the
load change, it saves energy than the other methods.
In this paper its calculation procedure is generated
and the example of the building DP calculation is
given
Soft X-ray emission lines of Fe XV in solar flare observations and the Chandra spectrum of Capella
Recent calculations of atomic data for Fe XV have been used to generate
theoretical line ratios involving n = 3-4 transitions in the soft X-ray
spectral region (52-83 A), for a wide range of electron temperatures and
densities applicable to solar and stellar coronal plasmas. A comparison of
these with solar flare observations from a rocket-borne spectrograph (XSST)
reveals generally good agreement between theory and experiment. In particular,
the 82.76 A emission line in the XSST spectrum is identified, for the first
time to our knowledge in an astrophysical source. Most of the Fe XV transitions
which are blended have had the species responsible clearly identified, although
there remain a few instances where this has not been possible. The line ratio
calculations are also compared with a co-added spectrum of Capella obtained
with the Chandra satellite, which is probably the highest signal-to-noise
observation achieved for a stellar source in the 25-175 A soft X-ray region.
Good agreement is found between theory and experiment, indicating that the Fe
XV lines are reliably detected in Chandra spectra, and hence may be employed as
diagnostics to determine the temperature and/or density of the emitting plasma.
However the line blending in the Chandra data is such that individual emission
lines are difficult to measure accurately, and fluxes may only be reliably
determined via detailed profile fitting of the observations. The co-added
Capella spectrum is made available to hopefully encourage further exploration
of the soft X-ray region in astronomical sources.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures, Astrophysical Journal, in pres
Results of CC Follow-Up in the G. Rollie White Building
An investigation into the increase of energy
consumption of G. Rollie White Coliseum was part
of the persistence project[1], which investigates the
savings in energy consumption of ten buildings that
were commissioned by the Continuous
Commissioning (CCSM) group at the Energy Systems
Laboratory (ESL), Texas A&M University (TAMU).
The CC process was conducted between 1996 and
1997 under direction of and in cooperation with the
TAMU Physical Plant Energy Office. Total savings
for the ten building are 36,300 more than the initial CC are being
achieved
The Temperature and Relative Humidity Control in Cushing Library
Cushing Library located on TAMU campus is a
special building, which needs precise temperature
and relative humidity control, because it stores a
number of rare collections and memorial books.
There are five air-handling units (AHUs) serving the
building. This paper will concentrate the unit, which
serves the book stacks. This AHU is a multiple zone,
constant air volume (MZCAV) system, with reheat
and direct digital control (DDC). It has a standard
cooling coil, glycol cooling coil, steam humidifier,
and heat recovery. The chilled water to the standard
cooling coil is served by the chilled water loop on the
campus. There is a glycol chiller for the glycol
cooling coil for added dehumidification ability.
Because of programming problems and hardware
problems, the relative humidity was not controlling
properly. In this paper, the new control program for
temperature and relative humidity control is
implemented and the energy savings from the new
control program is estimated. The temperature and
relative humidity are now under control
Continuous Commissioning Results Verification and Follow-up For an Institutional Building: A Case Study
The Kleberg Building on the Texas A&M
University campus is a teaching/research facility
consisting of classrooms, offices and laboratories,
with a total floor area of approximately 165,030 ft2.
Continuous Commissioning (CC) was performed
on the building in August 1996 with additional
follow-up in April 1999 and significant savings were
achieved. Subsequently, the building chilled water
and hot water energy consumption increased due to
later building operational changes. This paper
presents the verification and follow-up efforts, which
identified control problems in air handling units and
laboratory variable air volume (VAV) systems and
provided recommendations currently being
implemented to restore HVAC optimization
Correcting Thermal Distribution Problems for a Large University Campus
Texas A&M University main campus in
College Station consists of 114 buildings served by
two central plants. The two main campus loops are
more than 50 years old with a total piping length for
each loop in excess of 13 miles. The main campus
has long had a problem with thermal distribution to
the 114 buildings served by the central plants.
Pressure problems were encountered in the chilled
water and hot water distribution system during peak
demand periods. The differential pressure between
supply and return headers at buildings far from the
central plants was negative, in the middle area was
neutral, and close to the plant was positive. Various
modifications were performed over the years without
completely solving this problem. Discovering the real
cause could help improve the thermal distribution and
help determine how to best operate the system. This
paper presents the causes and recommendations for
the correction of the thermal distribution problems,
which include not only malfunctioning automatic
building hydraulic controls, but also some building
hydraulic configurations themselves. Based on the
findings, the thermal distribution problems will be
solved by repairing the controls and retrofitting
building hydraulic configurations as needed
- …