Faculty and Staff

This study investigates the impact of urban form and landscaping type on the mid-afternoon microclimate in semi-arid Phoenix, Arizona. The goal is to find effective urban form and design strategies to ameliorate temperatures during the summer months. We simulated near-ground air temperatures for typical residential neighborhoods in Phoenix using the three-dimensional microclimate model ENVI-met. The model was validated using weather observations from the North Desert Village (NDV) landscape experiment, located on the Arizona State University's Polytechnic campus. The NDV is an ideal site to determine the model's input parameters, since it is a controlled environment recreating three prevailing residential landscape types in the Phoenix metropolitan area (mesic, oasis, and xeric). After validation, we designed five neighborhoods with different urban forms that represent a realistic cross-section of typical residential neighborhoods in Phoenix. The scenarios follow the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) classification scheme after Stewart and Oke. We then combined the neighborhoods with three landscape designs and, using ENVI-met, simulated microclimate conditions for these neighborhoods for a typical summer day. Results were analyzed in terms of mid-afternoon air temperature distribution and variation, ventilation, surface temperatures, and shading. Findings show that advection is important for the distribution of within-design temperatures and that spatial differences in cooling are strongly related to solar radiation and local shading patterns. In mid-afternoon, dense urban forms can create local cool islands. Our approach suggests that the LCZ concept is useful for planning and design purposes.

Leveraging Drupal for your business:
Use Drupal to power your business -- hear case studies and learn about adapting to open-source technology.

Libraries are growing into new joint entities -- the library as a place, and the library as a resource. Library websites serve as a resource, delivering tools for learning to patrons and students in an academic setting. Drupal is an ideal tool for facilitating the specialized tasks that many library developers have to complete.

In this session, attendees will learn about:
       1. Using the built-in architecture of Drupal 6 and Drupal 7 to meet the goals of library 
           websites.
       2. The 10 best modules for library websites.
       3. 10 recommended theming techniques for common library interfaces.
       4. New expectations of library websites as gathered from user surveys and usability
           studies.
       5. Example set-ups of Drupal sites for common library settings and staff organizations.
       6. Successful case studies of major library websites run on Drupal.
       7. Tips for useful library-specific usability studies with library users and students.

Attendees will come away from this session with a firm understanding of quality library sites as tools, and what many users are growing to expect. They will also learn how to set up a Drupal website for a library, and successful ways to meet the specific resource needs of their organizations.

The archived event website can be accessed here.

Most redesigns involve exhaustive plans, dense reports, and thorough documentation of site requirements. When the website is perfected, this brand-new site is rolled out to users. This is often a lengthy process. The principals of Agile development champion interactions over processes, working software over comprehensive documentation and responding to change over following a plan. These methods encourage small, iterative changes on a rapid development and delivery cycle. This allows developers to respond to needs more quickly and decreases the cognitive load on users while allowing them to more easily adapt to change. Get tips for making a case for library websites to adopt Agile practices —small improvements through iterative changes allow users to adapt and increase user satisfaction.

This presentation addresses the usability testing and user feedback which initiated the decision to purchase a web-scale discovery service for a large academic research library, the selection process to determine a service provider, the project management employed to implement and market the service, feedback provided by users and library staff, and the future impact of web-scale discovery services on libraries and library staff.

Presentations describing the steps involved in a library website redesign are ubiquitous. Most redesigns involve exhaustive plans, dense reports, and thorough documentation of site requirements. When the website is perfected, this brand new site is rolled out to users. This is often a lengthy process.

The principals of Agile development champion interactions over processes, working software over comprehensive documentation and responding to change over following a plan. These methods encourage small, iterative changes on a rapid development and delivery cycle. This allows developers to respond to needs more quickly and decreases the cognitive load on users while allowing them to more easily adapt to change.

This presentation makes the case that library websites should adopt Agile practices. Small improvements through iterative changes allow users to adapt and increase user satisfaction.