New Madawaska Land Port of Entry and International Bridge Project Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement and Draft Programmatic Section 4(f) Evaluation

https://digitalmaine.com/gsa_feddocs/1000/thumbnail.jp

Evaluating daylighting effectiveness and occupant visual comfort in a side-lit open-plan office building in San Francisco, California

The introduction of daylight to reduce electrical lighting energy consumption and to enhance Indoor Environmental Quality is one of the most common claims made for commercial office buildings promoted as “sustainable,” “energy efficient,” “green,” or “high performance.”  However, daylit buildings are rarely studied in use to examine the impact of design strategies on visual comfort, or to examine how occupant modifications to the facade may reduce daylighting effectiveness and visual connection to the outdoors.   This paper presents key findings from a post-occupancy study of a side-lit open-plan office building located in San Francisco, California.  The study examines daylighting performance over daily and seasonal changes in sun and sky conditions in core and perimeter zones of the building.  Daylighting performance is assessed through measurements of electrical lighting energy, observations of occupant modifications to the facade, and physical measurements of interior lighting conditions paired with occupant subjective assessments using novel desktop polling station devices.  Results show a high frequency of visual discomfort responses at both perimeter and core workspaces and observations reveal a large percentage of facade glazing covered by interior shading devices.   Despite the significant reduction in effective visible light transmission, occupants working in the perimeter zones generally considered the levels of available daylight to be sufficient, even when daylight levels were below recommended thresholds for daylight autonomy.  Issues related to the daylighting design strategies are discussed in regard to improving the performance of future daylit buildings and refining daylighting design criteria

Capacity of semi-rigid composite joints in accommodating column loss

In the scenario of column loss, joints would be subjected to bending moment combined with a tensile force due to large vertical displacement, where tensile force plays a critical role in resisting progressive collapse of structure by providing the catenary force. In order to study the effect of tensile force on the behavior of semi-rigid composite joints in structures in the case of column loss, six semi-rigid flush endplate connections tests were conducted, which include pure flexural tests, pure tensile tests and combined flexural and tensile tests. The experimental results indicate that under pure bending moment condition, the semi-rigid composite joint displays sufficient rotation capacity for forming “catenary action”. It is characteristic of the semi-rigid composite joint that its moment capacity decreases in a linear manner together with the increase of tensile load. Also, the capacity of semi-rigid composite joints is compared with that of the full-welded rigid composite joints. The tensile strength of high-strength bolts would not exert any effect on the initial stiffness of semi-rigid joint, but bring about decline in the moment resistance and tensile resistance of semi-rigid joint. The joints tend to fail at “catenary phase” under tensile force. A simplified M-N correlation formula for composite joint is proposed to describe the behavior of joint in structures under column loss. The finite element model with material failure criterion can predict the fracture of bolt in semi-rigid composite joint

Comment letters to the National Commission on Commission on Fraudulent Financial Reporting, 1987 (Treadway Commission) Vol. 2

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_sop/1662/thumbnail.jp

New Madawaska Land Port of Entry and International Bridge Project Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement and Draft Programmatic Section 4(f) Evaluation

https://digitalmaine.com/gsa_feddocs/1000/thumbnail.jp

Security Zones and New York City's Shrinking Public Space

Urban scholars lament the loss of public space due to heightened security and behavioral controls borne of economic priorities and anti-terror concerns after September 11th 2001. Owners and managers of government buildings, banks and courthouses have closed streets and fitted the surrounding space with concrete barriers, bollards and moat-like structures to prevent potential terror attacks. These are reasonable protections in emergency situations, but, as threat levels fall, these zones fail to incorporate a diversity of users, privatizing the space for those with security clearance. The ubiquity of these zones encourages us to consider them as a new type of land use. To test this statement, we describe the results of site visits to two high-profile New York City neighborhoods (one with numerous civic buildings, the other populated with corporate headquarters). Using a simple tool we developed, we find that 27% of aggregate non-building area in the two districts is now in a security zone. Interestingly, the percentage of space within each district that can be classed as a security zone is reasonably similar, providing insight into the way in which terror targets are internally and externally defined and justified. We argue that this new type of land use is an important and permanent feature of twenty-first century global cities. Copyright (c) 2009 The Authors. Journal Compilation (c) 2009 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.