Adding value and meaning to coheating tests

Purpose: The coheating test is the standard method of measuring the heat loss coefficient of a building, but to be useful the test requires careful and thoughtful execution. Testing should take place in the context of additional investigations in order to achieve a good understanding of the building and a qualitative and (if possible) quantitative understanding of the reasons for any performance shortfall. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach: Leeds Metropolitan University has more than 20 years of experience in coheating testing. This experience is drawn upon to discuss practical factors which can affect the outcome, together with supporting tests and investigations which are often necessary in order to fully understand the results. Findings: If testing is approached using coheating as part of a suite of investigations, a much deeper understanding of the test building results. In some cases it is possible to identify and quantify the contributions of different factors which result in an overall performance shortfall. Practical implications: Although it is not practicable to use a fully investigative approach for large scale routine quality assurance, it is extremely useful for purposes such as validating other testing procedures, in-depth study of prototypes or detailed investigations where problems are known to exist. Social implications: Successful building performance testing is a vital tool to achieve energy saving targets. Originality/value: The approach discussed clarifies some of the technical pitfalls which may be encountered in the execution of coheating tests and points to ways in which the maximum value can be extracted from the test period, leading to a meaningful analysis of the building's overall thermal performance

Crystallization of random trigonometric polynomials

We give a precise measure of the rate at which repeated differentiation of a random trigonometric polynomial causes the roots of the function to approach equal spacing. This can be viewed as a toy model of crystallization in one dimension. In particular we determine the asymptotics of the distribution of the roots around the crystalline configuration and find that the distribution is not Gaussian.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Early occipital sensitivity to syntactic category is based on form typicality

Syntactic factors can rapidly affect behavioral and neural responses during language processing; however, the mechanisms that allow this rapid extraction of syntactically relevant information remain poorly understood. We addressed this issue using magnetoencephalography and found that an unexpected word category (e.g., “The recently princess . . . ”) elicits enhanced activity in visual cortex as early as 120 ms after exposure, and that this activity occurs as a function of the compatibility of a word’s form with the form properties associated with a predicted word category. Because no sensitivity to linguistic factors has been previously reported for words in isolation at this stage of visual analysis, we propose that predictions about upcoming syntactic categories are translated into form-based estimates, which are made available to sensory cortices. This finding may be a key component to elucidating the mechanisms that allow the extreme rapidity and efficiency of language comprehension

Reviews

Review of The Industrial Relations Amending Legislation of 1976, Industrial Conflict: A Study of Three New Zealand Industries, A Seventh Man, Economists at Bay - Why the Experts Will Never Solve Your Problem

Random polynomials, random matrices, and LL-functions

We show that the Circular Orthogonal Ensemble of random matrices arises naturally from a family of random polynomials. This sheds light on the appearance of random matrix statistics in the zeros of the Riemann zeta-function.Comment: Added background material. Final version. To appear in Nonlinearit

Chesapeake Bay Wave Climate : Wolf Trap Wave Station, Report and Summary of Wave Observations November 6, 1989 through August 2, 1990

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science, in cooperation with the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Division of Soil and Water Conservation, has identified as one of its major goals the systematic study of hydrodynamic processes that affect recreational, shoreline and benthic resources in the coastal zone of the Commonwealth. In pursuit of that goal, a long-term study of the wave climate in the Virginia portion of Chesapeake Bay was initiated in 1988 with support from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration through the Coastal Zone Management Program administered by the Virginia Council on the Environment (Grant No. NA89AA-D-CZ134)

Chirped pulse Raman amplification in plasma: high gain measurements

High power short pulse lasers are usually based on chirped pulse amplification (CPA), where a frequency chirped and temporarily stretched ``seed'' pulse is amplified by a broad-bandwidth solid state medium, which is usually pumped by a monochromatic ``pump'' laser. Here, we demonstrate the feasibility of using chirped pulse Raman amplification (CPRA) as a means of amplifying short pulses in plasma. In this scheme, a short seed pulse is amplified by a stretched and chirped pump pulse through Raman backscattering in a plasma channel. Unlike conventional CPA, each spectral component of the seed is amplified at different longitudinal positions determined by the resonance of the seed, pump and plasma wave, which excites a density echelon that acts as a "chirped'" mirror and simultaneously backscatters and compresses the pump. Experimental evidence shows that it has potential as an ultra-broad bandwidth linear amplifier which dispenses with the need for large compressor gratings

Chesapeake Bay wave climate : Thimble Shoal light wave station, report and summary of wave observations, October 8, 1990 through August 22, 1991 and Chesapeake light tower - VIMS Star gage test measurements and evaluation, July, August, October 1991

This report also presents a description of a directional wave gaging system, known as a Star gage, that is designed for long-term, low-maintenance operation both within and immediately outside the Chesapeake Bay entrance area. This development was prompted by our dependence to date on the single-point, PUV-type directional wave gage described below. While ideally suited for short-term investigative studies at different sites, the PUV directional wave gage requires field service visits at monthly intervals to maintain adequate performance and uninterrupted operation. A prototype Star gage system was constructed and field tested to evaluate its potential use as a long-term and eventual real-time wave gage for the Virginia coastal environment. A test deployment of the VIMS Star gage, a 4-element pressure sensor array utilizing a star configuration (Goda, 1985) was conducted at the Chesapeake Light Tower (CLT, Fig. 1) located approximately 14 nautical miles east of the bay entrance. Results of these tests are reported in Section VII

Plasma density measurements using chirped pulse broad-band Raman amplification

Stimulated Raman backscattering is used as a non-destructive method to determine the density of plasma media at localized positions in space and time. By colliding two counter-propagating, ultra-short laser pulses with a spectral bandwidth larger than twice the plasma frequency, amplification occurs at the Stokes wavelengths, which results in regions of gain and loss separated by twice the plasma frequency, from which the plasma density can be deduced. By varying the relative delay between the laser pulses, and therefore the position and timing of the interaction, the spatio-temporal distribution of the plasma density can be mapped out

A Bit-String Model for Biological Aging

We present a simple model for biological aging. We studied it through computer simulations and we have found this model to reflect some features of real populations.Comment: LaTeX file, 4 PS figures include