Spreading a positive message about work, earnings and benefits through peer networking: Findings from the Peer Employment Benefits Network

Misunderstanding and fears about the impact of earnings on benefits represent a significant barrier in the return-to-work efforts of people with disabilities. This pilot project evaluated an approach to spreading a positive message about work and dispelling myths about the effects of work on Social Security benefits through outreach and networking in the disability community. A peer leadership project was developed by enlisting 33 people with disabilities, mainly through disability advocacy organizations, who had experience with disability benefits. They received several days of basic training about work incentives, networking strategies, and community resources that support employment. These peer leaders then developed and pursued outreach plans in their communities. Peer leaders reported making 1046 contacts through their personal networks. 130 of the people contacted participated in a survey rating the quality of the interaction and their activities involving employment. The majority of respondents reported they had received helpful information from the peer leaders and had less concern about the negative effects of work on benefits; approximately one-quarter took some steps toward going to work. The evidence from this project suggests that a peer to peer approach may be effective in promoting a positive message about and creating interest in employment

The Journal of the Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning

IMPACT: The Journal of the Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning is a peer-reviewed, biannual online journal that publishes scholarly and creative non-fiction essays about the theory, practice and assessment of interdisciplinary education. Impact is produced by the Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning at the College of General Studies, Boston University (www.bu.edu/cgs/citl).In this issue, podcasts are looked at as a pedagogical game changer. Using the award-wining podcast Serial as their catalyst, this issue's essayists look at podcast's emerging role in higher education, how multimodal learning can help students find their voices, the podcast's place in the curriculum at a criminal justice college, and how podcasts can inspire students to reflectively assess their own writing. Our reviewers take a critical look at the podcasts Welcome to Night Vale and Revisionist History

Development and evaluation of a building integrated aquifer thermal storage model

An aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) in combination with a heat pump is an excellent way to reduce the net energy usage of buildings. The use of ATES has been demonstrated to have the potential to provide a reduction of between 20 and 40% in the cooling and heating energy use of buildings. ATES systems are however a complex system to analyse as a number of ground conditions influence heat losses within the aquifer. ATES is also not confined from the sides and is therefore vulnerable to heat losses through conduction, advection and dispersion. The analyses of ATES system is even further complicated when the dynamic of a building is considered. When connected to a building, the temperature in the aquifer is influenced by the amount of heat exchange with the varying building load. Given the energy saving potentials of ATES systems in building operation, detailed understanding of the influence of buildings on the ATES systems and vice versa would facilitate improved operation and efficiency of ATES and building coupled systems. Therefore, taking into account the variations in the building and below ground conditions, there is the need for the development of a model that can potentially handle the dynamics on both sides. Finite element and finite volume methods are frequently used in the development of ATES models and proven as adequate tools for modelling complex ground conditions, however, most developed ATES models are often analysed independent of the building. Therefore, in this study, an ATES model that also integrates building dynamics is developed using the finite element method (FEM). The developed model was validated using data from an ATES and building in the Netherlands. The developed model was shown to have an absolute mean error of 0.17 °C and 0.12 °C for the cold and warm wells respectively

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Low delta-T syndrome in cooling systems:A systematic review of the signs, symptoms, and causes

Return water temperature and flow rate are indicators of the energy efficiency of chilled water systems. Since the late 1980s, the return water temperature has deviated from the designed value, resulting in an increased flow rate. Such deviations have been recognized as a persistent ‘disease’ named low delta-T syndrome. Based on a medical approach, this study aimed to categorise the key signs and symptoms, and causes to classify low delta-T syndrome into subclasses with individual properties; to connect individual causes to the subclasses; and to identify disagreements on individual causes. Through a systematic review of the literature, over 190 papers published since the late 1980s were identified and studied. By combining different return water temperature profiles and flow rates, low delta-T syndrome was classified into four subclasses with severities ranging from 1 (mild) to 4 (extreme). These subclasses were described with 12 signs and symptoms, each characterised by 19 (from a total of 52) individual or combined causes, to provide an improved overview and a fundamental basis for developing treatments. A fundamental analysis of low delta-T syndrome on a cooling coil revealed that cooling coils with a high chilled water temperature difference and a high chilled water supply temperature at design conditions have a higher risk of developing it. This literature review provides an improved understanding of as well as considerations regarding how to prevent, resolve, mitigate, and handle low delta-T syndrome during design and operation

Personal control of correlated color temperature of light:Effects on thermal comfort, visual comfort, and cognitive performance

Recent studies have suggested that thermal and visual comfort are correlated, although the causality underlying this correlation is unclear. Personal control of correlated color temperature (CCT) provides individual visual comfort, but its effects on other parameters such as thermal comfort and cognitive performance remain underexamined. Therefore, we investigated if personal control of CCT can, on top of visual comfort, enhance thermal comfort and cognitive performance in office scenarios while exposed to mild cold (17 °C) using a 2x2 within-subject design. Sixteen participants were initially exposed to CCT of either 2700 K or 5700 K for 70 min. In the subsequent 70 min, participants either had free control of CCT or no control. As expected, personal control of CCT improved visual comfort and mitigated perceived eye-related symptoms. However, it did not significantly affect thermal comfort for either antecedent CCT. When the antecedent CCT was 5700 K, personal control of CCT increased alertness and physiological arousal, improved the planning and verbal cognitive performance, but, unexpectedly, decreased performance on mental spatial manipulation tasks. Additional analyses then explored the role of the psychological and personalization effects of personal control by controlling for the actual CCT. These suggest that control benefited visual comfort, eye-related symptoms, perceived task performance, pleasure, alertness and physiological arousal. This study is one of the first studies to demonstrate that visual comfort does not causally affect thermal comfort. Personal control of CCT benefits visual appraisals and eye-related symptoms, sometimes improves alertness, but differentially influences cognitive performance depending on the task type.</p