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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.
Explains the urgent need for libraries to engage in preservation of irreplaceable content on VHS and other obsolete video formats in their collections, and presents a database of titles for which due diligence as required by Section 108 of US Copyright has already been completed.
In spring 2013, the presenters developed a survey on academic library streaming video and distributed it broadly through various discussion and mailing lists.
This is the first large-scale and most comprehensive effort to date to collect data on streaming video funding, licensing, acquisition, and hosting in academic libraries. Its results will provide benchmark data for future explorations of this rapidly expanding approach to video in academic libraries.
Streaming video is becoming a common occurrence on many campuses today. Its fast growth is due in part to the steady growth of online classes and programs. Technology has also played a role in this growth as alternatives for ingesting and accessing content have expanded. Multiple options are now available including in-house approaches, cloud storage, and third party vendors.
This survey collected data on how academic institutions address the day-to-day operations related to streaming video as well as perceived directions for future action.
Survey questions addressed selection and acquisition of video in both hard copy and streaming formats, funding for acquisitions, current and planned hosting interfaces, cataloging and access, and current practice and policy on digitization of hard copy titles for streaming. This session reviews the instrument used, and provides a preliminary look at some of the key data collected.
Streaming video has been an option for academic libraries for nearly a decade. What is the state of streaming video in academic libraries today? How are these libraries acquiring streaming videos? Who makes acquisition decisions? How much staff time does supporting streaming video require?
A book review appearing in the periodical "Library Journal." The book is "Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life in the Minor Leagues of Baseball" by John Feinstein. © 2014. Library Journal. All rights reserved.
The current debate over graduate rate calculations and results has glossed over the relationship between student migration and the accuracy of various graduation rates proposed over the past five years. Three general grade-based graduation rates have been proposed recently, and each has a parallel version that includes an adjustment for migration, whether international, internal to the U.S., or between different school sectors. All of the adjustment factors have a similar form, allowing simulation of estimates from real data, assuming different unmeasured net migration rates. In addition, a new age-based graduation rate, based on mathematical demography, allows the simulation of estimates on a parallel basis using data from Virginia's public schools.
Both the direct analysis and simulation demonstrate that graduation rates can only be useful with accurate information about student migration. A discussion of Florida's experiences with longitudinal cohort graduation rates highlights some of the difficulties with the current status of the oldest state databases and the need for both technical confidence and definitional clarity. Meeting the No Child Left Behind mandates for school-level graduation rates requires confirmation of transfers and an audit of any state system for accuracy, and basing graduation rates on age would be a significant improvement over rates calculated using grade-based data.
Analysis of newly-released data from the Florida Department of Education suggests that commonly-used proxies for high school graduation are generally weak predictors of the new federal rate.