Building envelope design for climate change mitigation: a case study of hotels in Greece

This paper presents results of a study of the impact of future climate change scenarios as developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and implemented in weather files for specific future time slices (2020, 2050 and 2080) for the three climatic regions of Greece on the design of the external envelope of a hotel building in Greece. The impact of climate change on the hotel is assessed via hourly simulations of a calibrated model developed using the software TRNSYS. Additionally, the paper aims to identify optimal refurbishment strategies, given the constraints of the existing case-study building when transposed to the three different climatic zones in Greece. Two modes of the hotel building were studied: ‘all year’ and ‘seasonally’ operated. It was found that different external envelope energy-efficient strategies can be applied depending on the climatic zone and whether the hotel is all-year or seasonally operated

Airborne Measurements of Gravity Wave Breaking at the Tropopause

2000 FLORIDA AVE NW, WASHINGTON, DC, 2000

A follow-up study of 100 reading disability cases, now adults, who were associated with the Boston University Education Clinic between 1936-1948

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Beam Diffraction by a Planar Grid Structure at 93 GHz

The idea of using diode grids for electronic beam steering was introduced by Lam et al [l]. As shown in Figure 1, when an incident beam reflects off the diode grid, the direction of the reflected wave can be controlled by progressively varying the ref1ection phase across the grid. The reflection phase of the diode grid can be controlled by varying the DC bias on the diodes. Later, a monolithic diode grid was fabricated with l600 varactor diodes, and a relative phase shift of 70° at 93 GHz was measured [2]. This work verified the transmission-line theory used to design the grid, but the phase shift was not sufficient to steer the beam, recently, Johansson [3] designed and built a passive planar grating reflector antenna that focused a beam. A rigorous moment-method solution was applied to choose a grating geometry to select the first-order diffracted wave. In this work, using the transmission-line model approach, the goal was to demonstrate that the beam can be steered by building a grid structure without diodes to give a fixed beam shift. In these grids, diodes were replaced by gaps with different sizes to obtain different capacitances needed to steer a beam at 93 GHz. The result show a successful beam shift of 30° with a loss of 2.5 dB

Was wird aus der Eurozone? Eine Landkarte der Interessenkonflikte zur Reform der Währungsunion

Die Eurokrise hat deutlich gemacht, wie unvollständig und instabil die Architektur der Währungsunion ist. Dennoch kommen institutionelle Reformen nur schleppend voran oder bleiben auf halbem Wege stecken. Verantwortlich hierfür sind die divergierenden Entwicklungsperspektiven der Mitgliedstaaten für die Eurozone. Diese Studie analysiert die inhaltlichen und machtpolitischen Interessenkonflikte der am jüngsten Reformprozess beteiligten Länder. Es zeigt sich ein wirtschaftstheoretisch grundierter Dissens zwischen einer Minderheit um Finnland und Deutschland, die eine 'Stabilitätsunion' befürwortet und einer Mehrheit um Italien und Frankreich, die eine 'Fiskalunion' anstrebt. Doch die Position einer weitgehenden fiskalischen und politischen Integration der Eurozone kann sich nicht gegen die Verteidiger des Status quo durchsetzen, da ihre Vertreter uneinheitlich agieren und mit wirtschaftlichen Problemen kämpfen. Der hier untersuchte zwischenstaatliche Entstehungsprozess des Fünf-Präsidenten-Berichts von 2015 zeigt ein tief gespaltenes Europa und eine verzweifelt um Konsens bemühte Europäische Kommission.The euro crisis showed how incomplete and vulnerable the architecture of the monetary union is. However, institutional reforms are slow, or remain stuck. This is due to divergent development perspectives for the Eurozone on the part of Member States. This study analyses the conflicts of interest of member states involved in the recent reform process. Based on economic theory, a disagreement can be identified between a minority around Finland and Germany, which advocates a 'stability union', and a majority around Italy and France, which is striving for a 'fiscal union'. But the position of a far-reaching fiscal and political integration of the Eurozone cannot be achieved against the defenders of the status quo as the 'fiscal union' representatives are lacking coherence and unity and are struggling with economic problems. The intergovernmental run-up of the Five Presidents' Report of 2015, which is examined here, reveals a deeply divided Europe and a European Commission desperately seeking consensus

Site Factors Affecting Growth of Slash Pine in the Texas Post Oak Belt

A study was conducted in the Post Oak Belt of East Texas to determine which site factors affected height growth of slash pine (Pinus elliottii Engelm.). Height-age pairs were developed from stem analysis data. Nonlinear regression was implemented to develop a generalized height-age model. After curves were developed, stepwise regression was used to determine impacts of environmental variables on height growth. Environmental factors correlated with height growth included A horizon depth and those related to moisture relations including seasonal precipitation, average daily temperature, and texture of the A horizon. South. J. . Appl. For. 21(2):71-74

An evaluation resource for geographic information retrieval

In this paper we present an evaluation resource for geographic information retrieval developed within the Cross Language Evaluation Forum (CLEF). The GeoCLEF track is dedicated to the evaluation of geographic information retrieval systems. The resource encompasses more than 600,000 documents, 75 topics so far, and more than 100,000 relevance judgments for these topics. Geographic information retrieval requires an evaluation resource which represents realistic information needs and which is geographically challenging. Some experimental results and analysis are reported

A 100-element planar Schottky diode grid mixer

The authors present a Schottky diode grid mixer suitable for mixing or detecting quasi-optical signals. The mixer is a planar bow-tie grid structure periodically loaded with diodes. A simple transmission line model is used to predict the reflection coefficient of the grid to a normally incident plane wave. The grid mixer power handling and dynamic range scales as the number of devices in the grid. A 10-GHz 100-element grid mixer has shown an improvement in dynamic range of 16.3 to 19.8 dB over an equivalent single-diode mixer. The conversion loss and noise figure of the grid are equal to those of a conventional mixer. The quasi-optical coupling of the input signals makes the grid mixer suitable for millimeter-wave and submillimeter-wave applications by eliminating waveguide sidewall losses and machining difficulties. The planar property of the grid potentially allows thousands of devices to be integrated monolithically