Mobile automatic metabolic analyzer

Two flexible pipes, attached to face mask, are connected to spirometers in mobile cart. Inhaled air volume is measured as it is drawn from one spirometer, and exhaled air volume is measured as it is breathed into second spirometer. Sensor is used to monitor heartbeat rate

Lessons Learned from Continuous Commissioning of the Robert E. Johnson State Office Building, Austin, TX

The Robert E. Johnson State Office building is a 5-story, 303,389 square foot office building built in 2000 located in downtown Austin, TX. The original building design included a number of energy conservation measures that were incorporated into the final construction. During the investigation of the building, four energy conservation measures were identified, three of which deal with conventional HVAC systems. The fourth is related to the currently unutilized daylighting system which was one of the energy conservation measures of the original building design. Utilizing this system would lead to approximately 18.5% annual lighting energy savings or 5.6% annual whole building energy savings based on a DOE-2 simulation analysis. Three main lessons were learned from the experience with the Robert E. Johnson building: • The traditional design-construction-operation team must include the energy conservation analysis team • The entire building process should be reorganized to assure that complete information is provided and passed on from the energy conservation analysis team • High performance buildings should be continuously monitored and analyze

Lessons Learned from Continuous Commissioning® of a LEED Gold Building in Texas

The subject building is a relatively new building with 120,000 square feet located in Texas and was the first LEED® Gold building in the area. To earn the title of a green building, the designers of this high performance building included many conservation and energy related design features and construction practices. The energy related design features of the building include a roof mounted photovoltaic system, a green roof design, and connection to a district cooling system which utilizes thermal storage. Many of the operations and mechanical issues identified during the course of commissioning the subject building are items common to many commercial buildings, green or conventional. The potential cost savings from implementing the measures is 21% of the annual energy consumption with a simple payback of less than one year. The findings at the subject building suggest that: • High performance buildings have many of the same problems as conventional buildings since none of the issues and opportunities identified would generally be considered unique to high performance buildings • The potential for savings from commissioning the systems in high performance buildings is similar to that of conventional buildings and is as economically attractive

Independent Orbiter Assessment (IOA): Assessment of the hydraulics/water spray boiler subsystem

The results of the Independent Orbiter Assessment (IOA) of the Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Critical Items List (CIL) are presented. The IOA effort first completed an analysis of the Hydraulics/Water Spray Boiler (HYD/WSB) hardware, generating draft failure modes and potential critical items. To preserve independence, this analysis was accomplished without reliance upon the results contained within the NASA FMEA/CIL documentation. The IOA results were then compared to the NASA FMEA/CIL baseline with proposed Post 51-L updates included. A resolution of each discrepancy from the comparison is provided through additional analysis as required. This report documents the results of that comparison for the Orbiter HYD/WSB hardware. The IOA product for the HYD/WSB analysis consisted of 447 failure mode worksheets that resulted in 183 potential critical items being identified. Comparison was made to the NASA baseline which consisted of 364 FMEAs and 111 CIL items. This comparison produced agreement on all but 68 FMEAs which caused differences in 23 CIL items

An operating system for future aerospace vehicle computer systems

The requirements for future aerospace vehicle computer operating systems are examined in this paper. The computer architecture is assumed to be distributed with a local area network connecting the nodes. Each node is assumed to provide a specific functionality. The network provides for communication so that the overall tasks of the vehicle are accomplished. The O/S structure is based upon the concept of objects. The mechanisms for integrating node unique objects with node common objects in order to implement both the autonomy and the cooperation between nodes is developed. The requirements for time critical performance and reliability and recovery are discussed. Time critical performance impacts all parts of the distributed operating system; e.g., its structure, the functional design of its objects, the language structure, etc. Throughout the paper the tradeoffs - concurrency, language structure, object recovery, binding, file structure, communication protocol, programmer freedom, etc. - are considered to arrive at a feasible, maximum performance design. Reliability of the network system is considered. A parallel multipath bus structure is proposed for the control of delivery time for time critical messages. The architecture also supports immediate recovery for the time critical message system after a communication failure

Factors Supporting the Leadership of Women of Color in Higher Education, Local Politics, and the Nonprofit Sector

Women of color (WOC) are underrepresented in leadership roles within the fields of higher education and the nonprofit sector. The purpose of this study is to learn about the experiences of WOC who have achieved leadership roles in their professional fields. The collective experiences of women of color leaders will inform best practices for WOC who are pursuing professional leadership roles or professional mobility. These best practices will be beneficial for WOC, as well as employers who have the power to create a culture which supports the leadership of diverse WOC. It is essential for their leadership to inform best practices within these institutions since nonprofits serve communities of color and higher education institutions can support the advancement of communities of color through education leading to sustainable employment

Bridging the Gap Between Commissioning Measures and Large Scale Retrofits in Existing Buildings

Most often commissioning of existing buildings seeks to reduce a building’s energy consumption by implementation of operational changes via the existing equipment. In contrast, large scale capital retrofits seek to make major changes to the systems installed in the building to reach the same goal. The purpose of the investigations presented here is to find energy-saving measures which economically fall between the retro-commissioning measures which typically have very short paybacks and the large scale capital retrofits which typically have significantly longer paybacks. Based on a simulation analysis of three previously retro-commissioned university buildings, it was determined that all three are currently consuming more energy than would be expected under ideal operating conditions. The simulation estimated annual savings potential for the three buildings range from 28-44% of whole building energy consumption. A research level assessment of each has been conducted to identify the reasons why the subject buildings are not operating as efficiently as possible and energy saving measures are presented to bring the buildings as close to ideal operation as possible. This work seeks to determine if an on-site assessment can identify commissioning measures that realize a substantial portion of the indicated savings potential or whether it appears that there are reasons that would preclude commissioning measures from achieving significant savings. If it is not practical to implement commissioning measures due to antiquated controls, missing sensors, or other reasons, these investigations identify rapid payback retrofit measures that achieve as much of the projected savings as possible. The analysis indicates that 30-100% of the estimated savings potential can be realized in the three subject buildings with estimated paybacks of less than 3 years

Improving Patient Decision-Making in Health Care

Outlines regional variations within Minnesota in rates of patients with similar conditions receiving elective surgery, the concept of shared decision making, treatment choices for eight conditions, and steps for ensuring patients make informed decisions

Reversed polarity items in tourism scales

Disciplines such as marketing and education have begun to question the benefits of incorporating reverse polarity items (e.g., a mixture of negatively and positively worded items) into multi-item scales due to such items’ degradation of scale dimensionality. The tourism literature however, has yet to critique this practice due to the commonly held belief that reverse polarity items reduce acquiescence bias. With limited critique of its practice within the tourism literature, the purpose of this “Methods and Practice’ paper is to provide a literature review of the topic and to conduct psychometric analyses on four tourism scales including reversed polarity items. EFA and CFA results from 703 responses to the Psychological, Social, and Political Empowerment Scales of the Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale and 300 responses to the Perceived Stress Scale reveal that the inclusion of reversed polarity items had significant negative impacts on unidimensionality, model fit, factor loadings, and AVE in each instance. Differences were also found in the strength of regression coefficients and variance explained between reverse and non-reverse polarity scales when regressed on theoretically relevant dependent variables. Implications for future scale development are discussed highlighting the need to simultaneously reduce acquiescence bias and ensure scales demonstrate construct validity