Visualizing urban microclimate and quantifying its impact on building energy use in San Francisco

Weather data at nearby airports are usually used in building energy simulation to estimate energy use in buildings or evaluate building design or retrofit options. However, due to urbanization and geography characteristics, local weather conditions can differ significantly from those at airports. This study presents the visualization of 10-year hourly weather data measured at 27 sites in San Francisco, aiming to provide insights into the urban microclimate and urban heat island effect in San Francisco and how they evolve during the recent decade. The 10-year weather data are used in building energy simulations to investigate its influence on energy use and electrical peak demand, which informs the city's policy making on building energy efficiency and resilience. The visualization feature is implemented in CityBES, an open web-based data and computing platform for urban building energy research

Studies on Temperature and Strain Sensitivities of a Few-mode Critical Wavelength Fiber Optic Sensor

This paper studied the relationship between the temperature/strain wavelength sensitivity of a fiber optic in-line Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) sensor and the wavelength separation of the measured wavelength to the critical wavelength (CWL) in a CWL-existed interference spectrum formed by interference between LP01 and LP02 modes. The in-line MZI fiber optic sensor has been constructed by splicing a section of specially designed few-mode fiber (FMF), which support LP01 and LP02 modes propagating in the fiber, between two pieces of single mode fiber. The propagation constant difference, Δβ, between the LP01 and LP02 modes, changes non-monotonously with wavelength and reaches a maximum at the CWL. As a result, in sensor operation, peaks on the different sides of the CWL then shift in opposite directions, and the associated temperature/strain sensitivities increase significantly when the measured wavelength points become close to the CWL, from both sides of the CWL. A theoretical analysis carried out has predicted that with this specified FMF sensor approach, the temperature/strain wavelength sensitivities are governed by the wavelength difference between the measured wavelength and the CWL. This conclusion was seen to agree well with the experimental results obtained. Combining the wavelength shifts of the peaks and the CWL in the transmission spectrum of the SFS structure, this study has shown that this approach forms the basis of effective designs of high sensitivity sensors for multi-parameter detection and offering a large measurement range to satisfy the requirements needed for better industrial measurements

A precise description of the p-adic valuation of the number of alternating sign matrices

Following Sun and Moll, we study v_p(T(N)), the p-adic valuation of the counting function of the alternating sign matrices. We find an exact analytic expression for it that exhibits the fluctuating behaviour, by means of Fourier coefficients. The method is the Mellin-Perron technique, which is familiar in the analysis of the sum-of-digits function and related quantities

Magnetization reversal through synchronization with a microwave

Based on the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation, it can be shown that a circularly-polarized microwave can reverse the magnetization of a Stoner particle through synchronization. In comparison with magnetization reversal induced by a static magnetic field, it can be shown that when a proper microwave frequency is used the minimal switching field is much smaller than that of precessional magnetization reversal. A microwave needs only to overcome the energy dissipation of a Stoner particle in order to reverse magnetization unlike the conventional method with a static magnetic field where the switching field must be of the order of magnetic anisotropy.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure