Challenges of Creating a Verifiable Building Energy Model

Conducting an energy model simulation for building systems design is indispensable when designing for optimal energy efficiency. Without a critical understanding of the potential energy limitations and waste that a building might exhibit, the substantial financial increase of a project might inhibit the growth of environmental conservancy and progress in business. Computational software operated by professionals helps to sustain that growth. The Science Engineering & Technology (ET) building on the Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis campus provided the model for this study and allowed observation of the usability of three distinct software packages - eQUEST v3.65, Trace 700 v6.3.2, and EnergyPlus paired with OpenStudio V8.7.0 - and a comparison of the end results with actual utility data provided by Campus Facility Services. This was an attempt to identify the main challenges that building energy modeling software has yet to overcome and to evaluate the merits of the software packages regarding ease-of-use, detail, accuracy, and modeling options. It is shown that the two biggest challenges are 1) creating a model that accurately represents the physical building and its internal systems, and 2) accurate representation of usage and conditions to which the building will be subjected. The former can be mitigated by creating more user-friendly programs with a better system of checks and balances to identify errors in the physical model. The latter is highly complex, often due to the lack of data acquisition to represent the past and the absence of exacting foresight into the uses and conditions of the building. The results show that energy consumption can be calculated with error ranging of 11%-21% with eQUEST, between 18%-90% with Trane Trace 700 and between 5%-20% with EnergyPlus

Measurement of dermal water content using a multi-wavelength optical sensor

Skin hydration is crucial for overall skin health. Maintaining skin hydration levels preserves skin integrity and prevents tissue damage which can lead to several debilitating conditions. Moreover, continuous monitoring of skin hydration can contribute to the diagnosis or management of serious diseases. For instance, sugar imbalance in diabetes mellitus and kidney disease can lead to the loss of bodily fluids and cause dry skin. Therefore, continuous, accurate and non-intrusive monitoring of skin hydration would present a remarkable opportunity for maintaining overall health and wellbeing. There are various techniques to assess skin hydration. Electrical based Corneometers are currently the gold standard in clinical and non-clinical practice. However, these techniques have a number of limitations. In particular, they are costly, sizeable, intrusive, and operator dependent. Recent research has demonstrated that near infrared spectroscopy could be used as a non-intrusive alternative for the measurement of skin water content. The present paper reports the development and in-vitro validation of a noninvasive, portable, skin hydration sensor. The results indicate that the developed sensor can deliver reliable measurements of skin water content

Color based Object Tracking Robot

This article presents a vision based object tracking robot controlled by a computer software. We developed a robotic object tracking such that it can track objects based on color. Introducing color along with the shape of the object reduces false detection. The unique features of this system are its ability to perform simultaneous real-time image acquisition and range sensing. Furthermore, its flexible design, confers the ability to handle a wide range of tasks. In this case the object of interest is a red circular shape. The system is designed to track the object in its Y-Z plane using robotic manipulator. The program for color based object tracking is written in MATLAB. The camera is used to track the object and decide the motion of the system. The object of interest is detected successfully using two stages, color detection followed by shape detection. The detected object is then tracked by the robotic end effector very closely

Design and Analysis of a Continuous and Non-Invasive Multi-Wavelength Optical Sensor for Measurement of Dermal Water Content

Dermal water content is an important biophysical parameter in preserving skin integrity and preventing skin damage. Traditional electrical-based and open-chamber evaporimeters have several well-known limitations. In particular, such devices are costly, sizeable, and only provide arbitrary outputs. They also do not permit continuous and non-invasive monitoring of dermal water content, which can be beneficial for various consumer, clinical, and cosmetic purposes. We report here on the design and development of a digital multi-wavelength optical sensor that performs continuous and non-invasive measurement of dermal water content. In silico investigation on porcine skin was carried out using the Monte Carlo modeling strategy to evaluate the feasibility and characterize the sensor. Subsequently, an in vitro experiment was carried out to evaluate the performance of the sensor and benchmark its accuracy against a high-end, broad band spectrophotometer. Reference measurements were made against gravimetric analysis. The results demonstrate that the developed sensor can deliver accurate, continuous, and non-invasive measurement of skin hydration through measurement of dermal water content. Remarkably, the novel design of the sensor exceeded the performance of the high-end spectrophotometer due to the important denoising effects of temporal averaging. The authors believe, in addition to wellbeing and skin health monitoring, the designed sensor can particularly facilitate disease management in patients presenting diabetes mellitus, hypothyroidism, malnutrition, and atopic dermatitis

Compact amplifier integration in a square patch antenna

International audienc

Radiation results obtainable with diodes and amplifiers in a microstrip line

International audienc

Amplificateur intégré dans une antenne microruban rectangulaire

National audienc

Evaluation of Vicia dasycarpa Genotypes Under Drought Stress Conditions

This study was carried out to evaluate the effects of drought stress on 12 genotypes of vetch (Vicia dasycarpa) at the experimental field of Agriculture and Natural Resources Center of East Azarbaijan Province during 2003. Field trial was conducted as a spilt plot design based on randomized complete blocks with three replications. Drought treatments (normal, medium and severe stress conditions) were included in main plots and the genotypes were allocated in subplots. During the growing season, plant height, pod length, pod width, number of grains per pod, 1000 grain weight, number of pods per plant, number of grains per plant, number of axillary branches,  harvest index, biomass and grain yield were measured. Drought stress effected all traits (except number of grains per pod) significantly. Greatest amount of reduction in value due to water stress belonged to grain yield and biomass. Number of pods per plant and number of grains per plant were affected by drought more than other yield components. However, the adverse effect of water stress was not similar for all genotypes and there were significant genotype by environment interaction for important characters such as biomass, grain yield, number of pods per plant, number of grains per plant and plant height. Evaluation of the genotypes based on drought tolerance indices (STI and TOL) indicated that under medium water stress environment the genotypes 9 (from Italy) and 7 (from Turkey) showed better drought tolerance performance in terms of grain yield. Regarding biomass, the genotypes 3 (from Italy) and 6 (from Australia) were recognized as the most appropriate genotypes for hoth medium and severe drought stress conditions

The Protein Folding Problem: The Role of Theory

The protein folding problem was first articulated as question of how order arose from disorder in proteins: How did the various native structures of proteins arise from interatomic driving forces encoded within their amino acid sequences, and how did they fold so fast? These matters have now been largely resolved by theory and statistical mechanics combined with experiments. There are general principles. Chain randomness is overcome by solvation-based codes. And in the needle-in-a-haystack metaphor, native states are found efficiently because protein haystacks (conformational ensembles) are funnel-shaped. Order-disorder theory has now grown to encompass a large swath of protein physical science across biology