Opportunity-Rich Schools and Sustainable Communities: Seven Steps to Align High-Quality Education With Innovations in City and Metropolitan Planning and Development

Details challenges and steps for linking quality education and community and economic vitality, including establishing a shared vision and metrics, aligning investments for prosperity, and expanding access via transportation. Lists promising practices

Improved Battery Models of an Aggregation of Thermostatically Controlled Loads for Frequency Regulation

Recently it has been shown that an aggregation of Thermostatically Controlled Loads (TCLs) can be utilized to provide fast regulating reserve service for power grids and the behavior of the aggregation can be captured by a stochastic battery with dissipation. In this paper, we address two practical issues associated with the proposed battery model. First, we address clustering of a heterogeneous collection and show that by finding the optimal dissipation parameter for a given collection, one can divide these units into few clusters and improve the overall battery model. Second, we analytically characterize the impact of imposing a no-short-cycling requirement on TCLs as constraints on the ramping rate of the regulation signal. We support our theorems by providing simulation results.Comment: to appear in the 2014 American Control Conference - AC

Structural precursor to the metal-insulator transition in V_2O_3

The temperature dependence of the local structure of V_2O_3 in the vicinity of the metal to insulator transition (MIT) has been investigated using hard X-ray absorption spectroscopy. It is shown that the vanadium pair distance along the hexagonal c-axis changes abruptly at the MIT as expected. However, a continuous increase of the tilt of these pairs sets in already at higher temperatures and reaches its maximum value at the onset of the electronic and magnetic transition. These findings confirm recent theoretical results which claim that electron-lattice coupling is important for the MIT in V_2O_3. Our results suggest that interactions in the basal plane play a decisive role for the MIT and orbital degrees of freedom drive the MIT via changes in hybridization.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, 2 table

Individual Control of Risk: Seat Belt Use, Subjective Norms and the Theory of Reasoned Action

When faced with a risk for which an inexpensive solution is available, individuals often choose the risk rather than the solution. Protection from certain kinds of risks, e.g., using seat belts or condoms or insulating against radon, is largely under personal control, but individuals often choose not to comply with behaviors which would reduce the risk. The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) has been used to predict when individuals will comply. The authors attempted to validate aspects of the TRA by the use of scenarios. Factor analysis of their data supports the theory that intention is a major determinate of behavior but fails to establish the influence of scenarios on subjects\u27 intention to wear seat belts

Actuarial Senescence In A Dimorphic Bird: Different Rates Of Ageing In Morphs With Discrete Reproductive Strategies

It is often hypothesized that intra-sexual competition accelerates actuarial senescence, or the increase in mortality rates with age. However, an alternative hypothesis is that parental investment is more important to determining senescence rates. We used a unique model system, the white-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis), to study variation in actuarial senescence. In this species, genetically determined morphs display discrete mating strategies and disassortative pairing, providing an excellent opportunity to test the predictions of the above hypotheses. Compared to tan-striped males, white-striped males are more polygynous and aggressive, and less parental. Tan-striped females receive less parental support, and invest more into parental care than white-striped females, which are also more aggressive. Thus, higher senescence rates in males and white-striped birds would support the intra-sexual competition hypothesis, whereas higher senescence rates in females and tan-striped birds would support the parental investment hypothesis. White-striped males showed the lowest rate of actuarial senescence. Tan-striped females had the highest senescence rate, and tan-striped males and white-striped females showed intermediate, relatively equal rates. Thus, results were inconsistent with sexual selection and competitive strategies increasing senescence rates, and instead indicate that senescence may be accelerated by female-biased parental care, and lessened by sharing of parental duties

Multiple Signaling Functions Of Song In A Polymorphic Species With Alternative Reproductive Strategies

Vocal traits can be sexually selected to reflect male quality, but may also evolve to serve additional signaling functions. We used a long-term dataset to examine the signaling potential of song in dimorphic white-throated sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis). We investigated whether song conveys multifaceted information about the vocalizing individual, including fitness, species identity, individual identity, and morph. We also evaluated whether song traits correlate differently with fitness in the two morphs, as the more promiscuous strategy of white, relative to tan, morph males might impose stronger sexual selection. Males with high song rates achieved higher lifetime reproductive success, and this pattern was driven by white morph males. In addition, males that sang songs with many notes survived longer, but this pattern was less robust. Thus, song traits reflect differences in fitness and may more strongly affect fitness in the white morph. Song frequency was unrelated to fitness, body size, or morph, but was individual specific and could signal individual identity. Songs of the two morphs displayed similar frequency ratios and bandwidths. However, tan morph males sang songs with longer first notes, fewer notes, and higher variability. Thus, song could be used in morph discrimination. Variation in frequency ratios between notes was low and could function in conspecific recognition, but pitch change dynamics did differ between four different song types observed. Our results support a multiple messages model for white-throated sparrow song, in which different song traits communicate discrete information about the vocalizing individual

Off-equilibrium dynamics of the two-dimensional Coulomb glass

The dynamics of the 2D Coulomb glass model is investigated by kinetic Monte Carlo simulation. An exponential divergence of the relaxation time signals a zero-temperature freezing transition. At low temperatures the dynamics of the system is glassy. The local charge correlations and the response to perturbations of the local potential show aging. The dynamics of formation of the Coulomb gap is slow and the density of states at the Fermi level decays in time as a power law. The relevance of these findings for recent transport experiments in Anderson-insulating films is pointed out.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure