7,132 research outputs found
DGNB building certification companion: Sustainability Tool for Assessment, Planning, Learning, and Engaging (STAPLE)
In the construction industry, the popularity of sustainability and its benefits have been on the rise in recent years. Alas, with various building sustainability assessment schemes on the market, there is still no single general method for a comprehensive and inclusive design and building process for sustainable buildings. The literature describes several barriers of entry preventing actors in the industry from seeking sustainability certifications and prioritizing design methods, supporting sustainability in greater numbers. In the newly developed tool, “DGNB building certification companion: Sustainable Tool for Assessment, Planning, Learning, and Engaging (STAPLE)”, a new Excel-based, interactive, and iterative education focused platform is introduced, intended to engage dialog among stakeholders, building owners, and decision makers, and the assigned group team leaders, based on the five DGNB topics. In order to establish common levels of knowledge, terminology, and understanding for proper interdisciplinary discussions, which would result in suitable and timely decisions, personal and professional development is enabled by imbedded educational documents in multiple formats throughout the tool as plain-language, easily digestible summaries of various topics regarding sustainability and the DGNB certification scheme. The identified barriers are described in the tool followed by a solution to overcome them. The tool, tested at multiple stages of development and moulded by many individuals both within and outside of the sustainable building industry, has shown to achieve the primary goals of assessment of individual’s current knowledge, educating through multiple stages and formats, and the inspiring of conversation among team members through a graphical display of opinions. Based on user feedback, the conclusion was that this is a desired product on the market. This new approach is expected to dramatically reduce misunderstandings, conflicts, and mistakes during a sustainable design process, helping the design team plan a project to possibly obtain the highest DGNB score if desired and properly documented
The Properties of Field Elliptical Galaxies at Intermediate Redshift. I: Empirical Scaling Laws
We present measurements of the Fundamental Plane (FP) parameters (the
effective radius, the mean effective surface brightness, and the central
velocity dispersion) of six field elliptical galaxies at intermediate redshift.
The imaging is taken from the Medium Deep Survey of the Hubble Space Telescope,
while the kinematical data are obtained from long-slit spectroscopy using the
3.6-m ESO telescope. The Fundamental Plane appears well defined in the field
even at redshift 0.3. The data show a shift in the FP zero point with
respect to the local relation, possibly indicating modest evolution, consistent
with the result found for intermediate redshift cluster samples. The FP slopes
derived for our field data, plus other cluster ellipticals at intermediate
redshift taken from the literature, differ from the local ones, but are still
consistent with the interpretation of the FP as a result of homology, of the
virial theorem and of the existence of a relation between luminosity and mass,
. We also derive the surface brightness vs. effective
radius relation for nine galaxies with redshift up to , and data
from the literature; the evolution that can be inferred is consistent with what
is found using the FP.Comment: 17 pages, including 9 figures, MNRAS, accepte
The metal absorption systems of the Hubble Deep Field South QSO
The Hubble Deep Field South (HDFS) has been recently selected and the
observations are planned for October 1998. We present a high resolution (FWHM
\kms) spectrum of the quasar J2233--606 () which
is located 5.1 arcmin East of the HDFS. The spectrum obtained with the New
Technology Telescope redward of the Lyman-- emission line covers the
spectral range 4386--8270 \AA. This range corresponds to redshift intervals for
CIV and MgII intervening systems of and
respectively. The data reveal the presence of two complex intervening CIV
systems at redshift and and two complex associated
() systems. Other two CIV systems at and
, suggested by the presence of strong Lyman-- lines in low
resolution ground based and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) STIS observations
(Sealey et al. 1998) have been identified. The system at is also
responsible for the Lyman limit absorption seen in the HST/STIS spectrum. The
main goal of the present work is to provide astronomers interested in the
Hubble Deep Field South program with information related to absorbing
structures at high redshift, which are distributed along the nearby QSO line of
sight. For this purpose, the reduced spectrum, obtained from three hours of
integration time, has been released to the astronomical community.Comment: revisited version accepted for publication by Astronomical Journal;
minor changes; typographical errors corrected; results and discussion
unchange
The Serendipitous Discovery of a Group or Cluster of young Galaxies at z=2.40 in Deep Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 Images
We report the serendipitous discovery of a group or cluster of young galaxies
at 2.40 in a 24-orbit HST/WFPC2 exposure of the field around the weak
radio galaxy 53W002. Potential cluster members were identified on ground-based
narrow-band redshifted Ly images and confirmed via spectroscopy.
In addition to the known weak radio galaxy 53W002 at z=2.390, two other
objects were found to have excess narrow-band Ly emission at
2.40. Both have been spectroscopically confirmed, and one clearly
contains a weak AGN. They are located within one arcminute of 53W002, or
Mpc (=0.5) at 2.40, which is the physical
scale of a group or small cluster of galaxies. Profile fitting of the WFPC2
images shows that the objects are very compact, with scale lengths
0\farcs 1 (kpc), and are rather faint
(luminosities < L*), implying that they may be sub-galactic sized objects. We
discuss these results in the context of galaxy and cluster evolution and the
role that weak AGN may play in the formation of young galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal (Letters). 13
pages of gzip compressed and uuencoded PS. Figures are available at
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~spd/bib.htm
Comment on "Giant absorption cross section of ultracold neutrons in Gadolinium"
Rauch et al (PRL 83, 4955, 1999) have compared their measurements of the Gd
cross section for Ultra-cold neutrons with an exptrapolation of the cross
section for thermal neutrons and interpreted the discrepancy in terms of
coherence properties of the neutron. We show the extrapolation used is based on
a misunderstanding and that coherence properties play no role in absorption.Comment: 2 pages, 1 postscript figure, comment on Rauch et al, PRL 83,4955
(1999
Stellar Populations of Luminous Evolved Galaxies at z~1.5
Observational evidence has been mounting over the past decade that at least
some luminous (~2 L*) galaxies have formed nearly all of their stars within a
short period of time only 1-2x10^9 years after the Big Bang. These are examples
of the first major episodes of star formation in the Universe and provide
insights into the formation of the earliest massive galaxies. We have examined
in detail the stellar populations of six z~1.5 galaxies that appear to be
passively evolving, using both ground and space-based photometry covering
rest-frame UV to visible wavelengths. In addition, we have obtained
medium-resolution spectroscopy for five of the six galaxies, covering the
rest-frame UV portion of the spectrum. Spectral synthesis modeling for four of
these galaxies favors a single burst of star formation more than 1 Gyr before
the observed epoch. The other two exhibit slightly younger ages with a higher
dust content and evidence for a small contribution from either recent star
formation or active nuclei. The implied formation redshifts for the oldest of
these sources are consistent with previous studies of passive galaxies at high
redshift, and improved stellar modeling has shown these results to be quite
robust. It now seems clear that any valid galaxy formation scenario must be
able to account for these massive (2x10^11 M_sun) galaxies at very early times
in the Universe.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures (2 in color), accepted for publication in Ap
Effects of Ellipticity and Shear on Gravitational Lens Statistics
We study the effects of ellipticity in lens galaxies and external tidal shear
from neighboring objects on the statistics of strong gravitational lenses. For
isothermal lens galaxies normalized so that the Einstein radius is independent
of ellipticity and shear, ellipticity {\it reduces} the lensing cross section
slightly, and shear leaves it unchanged. Ellipticity and shear can
significantly enhance the magnification bias, but only if the luminosity
function of background sources is steep. Realistic distributions of ellipticity
and shear {\it lower} the total optical depth by a few percent for most source
luminosity functions, and increase the optical depth only for steep luminosity
functions. The boost in the optical depth is noticeable (>5%) only for surveys
limited to the brightest quasars (L/L_* > 10). Ellipticity and shear broaden
the distribution of lens image separations but do not affect the mean.
Ellipticity and shear naturally increase the abundance of quadruple lenses
relative to double lenses, especially for steep source luminosity functions,
but the effect is not enough (by itself) to explain the observed
quadruple-to-double ratio. With such small changes to the optical depth and
image separation distribution, ellipticity and shear have a small effect on
cosmological constraints from lens statistics: neglecting the two leads to
biases of just Delta Omega_M = 0.00 \pm 0.01 and Delta Omega_Lambda = -0.02 \pm
0.01 (where the errorbars represent statistical uncertainties in our
calculations).Comment: Optical depth normalization discussed. Matches the published versio
Seeking the Ultraviolet Ionizing Background at z~3 with the Keck Telescope
We describe the initial results of a deep long-slit emission line search for
redshifted (2.7<z<4.1) Lyman-alpha. These observations are used to constrain
the fluorescent Ly-alpha emission from the population of clouds whose
absorption produces the higher-column-density component of the Ly-alpha forest
in quasar spectra. We use the results to set an upper limit on the ultraviolet
ionizing background. Our spectroscopic data obtained with the Keck II telescope
at lambda/(Delta lambda FWHM)~2000 reveals no candidate Ly-alpha emission over
the wavelength range of 4500-6200 Ang along a 3 arcmin slit in a 5400 s
integration. Our 3 sigma upper bound on the mean intensity of the ionizing
background at the Lyman limit is J(nu 0) < 2E-21 erg/s/cm**2/Hz/sr for
2.7<z<3.1 (where we are most sensitive), assuming Lyman limit systems have
typical radii of 70 kpc (q_0=0.5, H_0=50 km/s/Mpc). This constraint is more
than an order of magnitude more stringent than any previously published direct
limit. However, it is still a factor of three above the ultraviolet background
level expected due to the integrated light of known quasars at z~3. This pilot
study confirms the conclusion of Gould \& Weinberg (1996) that integrations of
several hours on a 10-m class telescope should be capable of measuring J(nu 0)
at high redshift.Comment: 22 pages, 2 postscipt figures. Latex requires aaspp4.sty and epsf.sty
(included). Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal (Nov 1998
Rotating light, OAM paradox and relativistic complex scalar field
Recent studies show that the angular momentum, both spin and orbital, of
rotating light beams possesses counter-intuitive characteristics. We present a
new approach to the question of orbital angular momentum of light based on the
complex massless scalar field representation of light. The covariant equation
for the scalar field is treated in rotating system using the general
relativistic framework. First we show the equivalence of the U(1) gauge current
for the scalar field with the Poynting vector continuity equation for paraxial
light, and then apply the formalism to the calculation of the orbital angular
momentum of rotating light beams. If the difference between the co-, contra-,
and physical quantities is properly accounted for there does not result any
paradox in the orbital angular momentum of rotating light. An artificial
analogue of the paradoxical situation could be constructed but it is wrong
within the present formalism. It is shown that the orbital angular momentum of
rotating beam comprising of modes with opposite azimuthal indices corresponds
to that of rigid rotation. A short review on the electromagnetism in
noninertial systems is presented to motivate a fully covariant Maxwell field
approach in rotating system to address the rotating light phenomenon.Comment: No figure
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