Lights Out Buckeyes – Landscape and Architectural Influences on Avian Window Collisions

Window collisions due to both glass reflectivity and lights at night are the second leading cause of bird death in the United States (Klem 1990). Many efforts have begun across the country to more accurately assess the impact and provide rehabilitation for window strike victims that survive. Many of the fine scale factors leading to window collisions have not been fully determined. Using data collected by myself and fellow members of the Lights Out Buckeyes team (OSU's avian window strike monitoring team), these smaller scale factors were further explored. The Lights Out Buckeyes team seeks to better understand specific factors causing birds to collide with a given building. These factors include the amount of tree cover, percentage and area of glass on buildings, as well as location on campus. The Lights Out Buckeyes team monitors campus four times a week, covering the entirety of campus twice per week. Over the course of four semesters of recording, 445 window strikes have been documented on campus by the team, 339 of which have been fatal. Most of the collisions found are migratory species while traveling between wintering and breeding grounds. Assessing these landscape and architectural factors can not only allow us to focus efforts on mitigation for these buildings but can help us to predict the likelihood of a given building being problematic and requiring extra monitoring efforts.No embargoAcademic Major: Forestry, Fisheries and Wildlif

A Note on the Population Statistics of Electron Avalanches and Streamers

Ultraviolet tests focused on population statistics of electron avalanches were not included in our earlier work [1], [2]. Now they have been performed, and it is shown that a recently derived statistical pattern fits all the measured data very well.

Surface Morphology of Porous Cementitious Materials Subjected to Fast Dynamic Fractures

This paper presents a study of the surface height irregularities of cement pastes subjected to fast dynamic fractures. The height irregularities are quantified by the values of the three-dimensional profile parameters. The studied dynamical irregularities show a similar analytical behavior to those obtained by static fractures

GENERAL MODEL OF RADIATIVE AND CONVECTIVE HEAT TRANSFER IN BUILDINGS: PART I: ALGEBRAIC MODEL OF RADIATIVE HEAT TRANSFER

Radiative heat transfer is the most effective mechanism of energy transport inside buildings. One of the methods capable of computing the radiative heat transport is based on the system of algebraic equations. The algebraic method has been initially developed by mechanical engineers for wide range of thermal engineering problems. The first part of the present serial paper describes the basic features of the algebraic model and illustrates its applicability in the field of building physics. The computations of radiative heat transfer both in building enclosures and also in open building envelopes are discussed and their differences explained. The present paper serves as a preparation stage for the development of a more general model evaluating heat losses of buildings. The general model comprises both the radiative and convective heat transfers and is presented in the second part of this serial contribution

Statistics of Electron Avalanches and Streamers

We have studied the severe systematic deviations of populations of electron avalanches from the Furry distribution, which has been held to be the statistical law corresponding to them, and a possible explanation has been sought. A  new theoretical concept based on fractal avalanche multiplication has been proposed and is shown to be a convenient candidate for explaining these deviations from Furry statistics.

Fractality of Fracture Surfaces

A recently published fractal model of the fracture surfaces of porous materials is discussed, and a series of explanatory remarks are added. The model has revealed a functional dependence of the compressive strength of porous materials on the fractal dimension of fracture surfaces. This dependence has also been confirmed experimentally. The explanatory remarks provide a basis for better establishing the model

GENERAL MODEL OF RADIATIVE AND CONVECTIVE HEAT TRANSFER IN BUILDINGS: PART II: CONVECTIVE AND RADIATIVE HEAT LOSSES

The present paper represents the second part of the serial publication, which deals with convective and radiative heat transfers in buildings. The algebraic computational method for combined convective-radiative heat transport in buildings has been proposed. The convective transport of heat has been formulated by means of the correlation functions of the Nusselt number. The radiative heat transfer has been specified by using the radiosity method explained in the first part of the serial publication. The system of transcendent equations has been formed to couple the convective and radiative heat transports. The transcendent system has been solved iteratively, which has facilitated to obtain the optimized surface temperatures as well as the optimized values of the coefficients of heat transfer. On the basis of these optimized values, a more precise overall heat loss has been computed and compared with the results obtained from the thermal standard. The strong and weak points of the both used numerical methods have been discussed