Programs and Communities

The urban heat island effect is especially significant in semi-arid climates, generating a myriad of problems for large urban areas. Green space can mitigate warming, providing cooling benefits important to reducing energy consumption and improving human health. The arrangement of green space to reap the full potential of cooling benefits is a challenge, especially considering the diurnal variations of urban heat island effects. Surprisingly, methods that support the strategic placement of green space in the context of urban heat island are lacking. Integrating geographic information systems, remote sensing, spatial statistics and spatial optimization, we developed a framework to identify the best locations and configuration of new green space with respect to cooling benefits. The developed multi-objective model is applied to evaluate the diurnal cooling trade-offs in Phoenix, Arizona. As a result of optimal green space placement, significant cooling potentials can be achieved. A reduction of land surface temperature of approximately 1–2 °C locally and 0.5 °C regionally can be achieved by the addition of new green space. 96% of potential day and night cooling benefits can be achieved through simultaneous consideration. The results also demonstrate that clustered green space enhances local cooling because of the agglomeration effect; whereas, dispersed patterns lead to greater overall regional cooling. The optimization based framework can effectively inform planning decisions with regard to green space allocation to best ameliorate excessive heat.

Engineered pavements cover a large fraction of cities and offer significant potential for urban heat island mitigation. Though rapidly increasing research efforts have been devoted to the study of pavement materials, thermal interactions between buildings and the ambient environment are mostly neglected. In this study, numerical models featuring a realistic representation of building-environment thermal interactions, were applied to quantify the effect of pavements on the urban thermal environment at multiple scales. It was found that performance of pavements inside the canyon was largely determined by the canyon geometry. In a high-density residential area, modifying pavements had insignificant effect on the wall temperature and building energy consumption. At a regional scale, various pavement types were also found to have a limited cooling effect on land surface temperature and 2-m air temperature for metropolitan Phoenix. In the context of global climate change, the effect of pavement was evaluated in terms of the equivalent CO2 emission. Equivalent CO2 emission offset by reflective pavements in urban canyons was only about 13.9e46.6% of that without building canopies, depending on the canyon geometry. This study revealed the importance of building-environment thermal interactions in determining thermal conditions inside the urban canopy.

We use the Northeast US Urban Climate Archipelago as a case study to explore three key limitations of planning and policy initiatives to mitigate extreme urban heat. These limitations are: (1) a lack of understanding of spatial considerations—for example, how nearby urban areas interact, affecting, and being affected by, implementation of such policies; (2) an emphasis on air temperature reduction that neglects assessments of other important meteorological parameters, such as humidity, mixing heights, and urban wind fields; and (3) too narrow of a temporal focus—either time of day, season, or current vs. future climates. Additionally, the absence of a direct policy/planning linkage between heat mitigation goals and actual human health outcomes, in general, leads to solutions that only indirectly address the underlying problems. These issues are explored through several related atmospheric modeling case studies that reveal the complexities of designing effective urban heat mitigation strategies. We conclude with recommendations regarding how policy-makers can optimize the performance of their urban heat mitigation policies and programs. This optimization starts with a thorough understanding of the actual end-point goals of these policies, and concludes with the careful integration of scientific knowledge into the development of location-specific strategies that recognize and address the limitations discussed herein.

The purpose of this project was to evaluate the State Bar of New Mexico's (SBNM) new podcast series, SBNM is Hear. The podcast was initially developed as a member outreach tool and a new platform for professional development and survey questions were developed to gauge the podcast’s effectiveness in these two areas. An electronic survey was deployed to active members of the SBNM through email. Respondents were asked questions regarding their demographics, whether they had listened to the series, and what content they would like to hear in the future. The survey resulted in 103 responses, of which 60% indicated that they had not listened to the podcast. The results showed that listenership was evenly divided between generations and that more females listened to at least one episode. The open-ended responses indicated that the two cohorts of respondents (listeners and non- listeners) viewed the podcast a potential connection to the New Mexico judiciary. Future recommendations include conducting an annual survey to continue to understand the effectiveness of the podcast and solicit feedback for continued growth and improvement

As the impact of technology on daily life continues to grow, online learning platforms for primary, secondary, post-secondary, and professional institutions find ways to:

1. Connect peers and instructors through digital communication.
2. Engage users more fully in learning.
3. Provide access to resources that enhance deep-impact education.

Online learning platforms, or learning management systems (LMS), are used to connect instructors and students through synchronous and asynchronous engagement tools, provide space for the transfer of resources and ideas, and track progress. However, these platforms were designed with more mainstream purposes - and more digitally savvy - users in mind.

Adult learning programs (with members ages 50+) currently have no online learning and sharing platform specifically designed to fit the needs and desires of their users. Despite the multitude of barriers to successful use, adult learning programs recognize the need to engage with members digitally and are seeking an online learning platform centered around their users.

This project, utilizing best practices in technical communication and mixed methods user experience research, broadens the boundaries of communication design by creating an online learning platform prototype specifically for adults ages 50+ through the lens of information design, content management, and user experience outcomes.

For more than 50 years, my aunt was a professional chef and baker who catered hundreds of events and owned a bakery before retiring. Her recipes have never been formally documented and are rarely shared because only she knows them. The purpose of the cooking website content strategy was to document five decades’ worth of my family’s recipes and write a cooking website content strategy report that will be used in the future to create the cooking website. Creating the website preserves the recipes and provides a resource that can be cited and referred to by future generations of my family. The cooking website applied project consists of a website content strategy report, including a social media strategy and website designs, documented recipes and oral histories, content audit, and content analysis.

This report aims to provide The Arts Partnership, an arts-based non-profit organization in the Fargo, ND-Moorhead, MN area, with recommendations on improving its “Connecting the Dots” weekly e-newsletter. The research was conducted using three separate channels – a quantitative survey of the current e-newsletter recipients, a qualitative coding exercise to uncover themes in each e-newsletter, and an analysis of the top-clicked links in each e-newsletter. The original research, combined with information gleaned from the literature review, results in seven recommendations The Arts Partnership can implement into its current program. These recommendations include reducing the amount of HTML in each e-newsletter to avoid SPAM traps, keeping the email as scannable as possible, maintaining its subscriber base to eliminate waste, ensuring its e-newsletters are mobile-responsive, improving the subject line of the e-newsletters, and finally, considering using a different email program that provides more features The Arts Partnership can use to continue to improve its newsletters.

The purpose of this applied project was to research potential methods for conducting performance and evaluation observations on users of Positive Train Control (PTC) and recommend the most effective measures of performance (MOPs) and measures of efficiency (MOEs) of those users. I conducted a study to collect and analyze what data could be observed and examined most effectively to produce causal explanations of behaviors when utilizing the PTC system. This study was done through literature review, interviews of PTC users and trainers, and through direct observations as I rode on trains watching crews interact with the system. Additionally, I researched several studies on human computer interface (HCI) usability studies of various software applications. Based upon the results, I recommend that direct-participant observations be employed and apply both the system and individual MOPs and MOEs identified in the report to track user’s proficiency. The data collected from these observations can be centralized and used to identify behavioral trends, drive corrective actions, create future policies as well as training content. These observations will address the need to have structured observations which allow observers to focus undistracted on the specific behaviors that affect train operations. This database would also identify employees that may need additional or refresher training.