09.03.08
Posted in Energy, The Oscar Show, UVa College of Arts & Sciences, University of Virginia, climate, efficiency, electricity, environmental conditions, fuel costs, sensory inputs, technology, visual processing at 11:04 am by Jacob Canon
In today’s show, adapted from an article written by Brevy Cannon, general assignment writer for UVa’s Office of Public Affairs, we discuss the research of Ron Williams, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, and his teams research of how to make more intelligent climate control systems, to aid in energy efficiency.
It’s not a new energy-saving concept to turn down your thermostat at night, or leave your air conditioner off when no one is home. A research team plans to take that concept to the next level by using automated sensors and sophisticated software to enable heating and cooling systems to respond to the number of occupants in a room at any given time.
Smart Climate Controls [6:32m]:
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The research team, which recently won a new UVa Collaborative Sustainable Energy Seed Grant worth about $30,000 to investigate how to make more intelligent climate control systems, includes Ron Williams, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, fellow electrical and computer engineer Paxton Marshall, John Quale, an assistant professor of architecture and director of UVa’s ongoing ecoMOD project, which involves studies of the energy efficiency of modular housing prototypes, and Cheryl Gomez, UVa’s director of utilities.
Williams said, “The volume of outside air that must be heated or cooled when 20 people are in a room is double that needed for 10, opening the possibility of significant energy savings from a climate control system that can respond to occupancy.” The most cost-effective measures to ensure adequate energy supplies and reduce greenhouse gas emissions come from energy conservation rather than new energy technologies.
Williams went on to say, “the idea of “intelligent building control” has been around since the 1970s. Only in recent years have computers and networking technology become so powerful and inexpensive that they could potentially be widely implemented in buildings at costs that could be justified in energy savings. Because the overall electric supply system is only about 33 percent efficient from fuel to end use, a one-unit reduction in consumption saves three units of new energy supply.
Williams has estimated that occupant-sensing technology could produce as much as a 9 percent energy savings during the heating season, but said he would be happy with even 2 to 3 percent energy savings.
To help keep down the cost of such systems, the U.Va. research team will create a sophisticated, but simple-to-customize, computer model of a building space that accounts for how the occupants and outside temperatures impact heating and cooling needs.
The team will monitor one University space, a student activity room called “The Forum” in the Observatory Hill Dining Hall, seeking to better match the amount of heating and cooling of the space to the precise number of occupants, without diminishing their perceived comfort.
Williams said, “the schedule of reservations for the room will be used as a starting point for predicting occupancy.” The team will install sensors — probably video cameras with image recognition software — to detect the comings and goings of people.
The team will correlate the occupancy data; predicted and actual, with measurements of air temperatures; inside and outside, air flows and electricity usage, to gradually improve their software model and controls.
The detecting poses several challenges, since people often come and go through the double doors in large groups and clumps, sometimes in both directions at once. Williams said, “it’s straightforward engineering, but — like the iPod — there are a lot of little problems that have to be overcome to make it all come together.I actually view this is as more of an embedded computing and information management problem rather than an energy management problem.”
Gomez said that she hopes that energy savings realized by this research can eventually be implemented more widely around Grounds. About one-third of the University’s 13.3 million square feet of space (in about 550 buildings) has been built or renovated since 1999, meaning the climate control systems are modern enough that they would benefit from intelligent building controls. In much of the rest, the heating and cooling systems are antiquated or in need of upgrades and would be largely unresponsive to short-term thermostat changes.
Gomez went on to say, “this problem has not yet been addressed aggressively, other “lower hanging fruit” offered more energy savings for lower costs, like installing fluorescent bulbs, LEDs and low-flow fixtures across Grounds… reducing climate control costs may be one of the next targets for saving energy at UVa.”
You’ve been listening to the Oscar Show, I’m Jacob Canon. Join us for our next show, when we will well discuss the research of Silvia Salinas Blemker, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, trying to identify reasons and mechanics of hamstring pulls.
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12.27.07
Posted in American bellflower, Biology at the University of Virginia, Evolutionary biologist, Galloway, Jacob Canon, Mountain Lake Biological Station, The Oscar Show, UVa College of Arts & Sciences, University of Virginia, adaptation, environmental conditions, environmental science, environmental scientist, genetic, maternal effects at 12:36 pm by Jacob Canon
Today’s show, taken from an article published on the Oscar web site written by Melissa Maki, is about evolutionary biologist Laura Galloway. Galloway’s work indicates that maternal plants give cues to their offspring helping them adapt to their environment.
Seeds of Change; Mother Knows Best [4:36m]:
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Have you ever heard the phrase, “I didn’t fall far from the tree.” Well, this can be especially important in the plant world. When habitat changes, animals migrate, but how do immobile organisms like plants cope when faced with alterations to their environment? This is an increasingly important question in light of new environmental conditions brought on by global climate change.
Evolutionary biologist Laura Galloway, an associate professor of Biology at the University of Virginia, recently completed a study of the American bellflower. This University of Virginia study, published in the Nov. 16 issue of The Journal Science, demonstrated that plants grown in the same setting as their maternal plant performed almost three and a half times better than those raised in a different environment. Indicating that maternal plants give cues to their offspring that help them adapt to their environmental condition.
What led to this line of inquiry was, a number of years ago Galloway observed that plants that had experienced drought had smaller seeds than those that had not. It was this highly visible physiological change within only one generation that intrigued her. This focused Galloway’s research on the transmission of environmental information between maternal plants and their offspring.
The American bellflower is a native wildflower that commonly grows in both shaded areas and areas that receive full sunlight for at least part of the day. Conducted in a natural habitat at the University of Virginia’s Mountain Lake Biological Station in Southwest Virginia, Galloway planted some seeds in light conditions similar to their maternal plants and some in different light. She found that plants growing in the same setting as their maternal plant outperformed those planted in a different environment.
Since plant adaptation is typically studied on a permanent, genetic level rather than in direct response to environmental conditions, Galloway’s insights are unique. Seeds typically fall close to their maternal plant, they grow in a similar environment. But, when seeds are dispersed to different environments, Galloway found that the plants may suffer for one generation, but as long as the seeds of those plants grow locally, their offspring will recover.
Galloway said, “We found a temporary mechanism of adaptation to local environmental conditions. Historically, maternal effects have been viewed as a complicating factor — an inconvenience. But we have found that they can dramatically influence the performance of an individual.
You’ve been listening to the Oscar Show… I’m Jacob Canon. I would like to thank all of you who have joined me this year exploring many of the topics of research at the University of Virginia.
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11.22.07
Posted in Jacob Canon, James Coan, MRI, Psychology, Relationships, The Oscar Show, University of Virginia, anxiety, brain, emotions, environmental conditions, happiness, hypothalamus, immune, nervous system, neurobiology, neurophysiology, physical health, physiology, sensory inputs, stress at 3:46 pm by Jacob Canon
How did you react the last time you had a fight with that significant someone in your life? With couples, the woman might apologize, or the man might make a joke or express understanding. By doing this, they subtly and briefly lighten the tension as they work their way through a disagreement.
Psychology Professor James Coan discovered a long time ago that by doing this, even when couples fight, they take care of each other. This interplay was significant when Coan designed a study exploring what happens in people’s brains when they behave emotionally or observe other people’s emotions. Coan said, “what we are learning is our emotions are more heavily involved in our day-to-day physical health than we previously thought.
How we deal with our relationships is closely tied to how long we live, how frequently we go to the doctor, how rapidly we recover from injury, how happy we tend to be in our lives.” With his colleagues, Hillary Schaefer and Richard J. Davidson from the University of Wisconsin, Coan sought to demonstrate the neurobiological basis of emotional expression and regulatory processes.
In the study, they used MRI technology to view these responses at the level of glucose metabolism and blood oxygenation in the brain. Because of the importance of emotional connectedness to the study, 16 happily married, heterosexual couples were recruited as test subjects. Wives were placed in the scanner so brain activity could be recorded as each was exposed to the anxiety-producing possibility of an electric shock to the ankle.
Researchers wanted to see what effect different types of emotional support would have in areas of the brain related to the body’s normal fight-or-flight stress response. Readings were taken when the woman was alone in facing this challenge, When a stranger, a male, was present to support her And when her husband offered support. Coan stated, “the scanning environment is pretty hostile to looking at interactions between people.” The MRI machine surrounds the subject’s body and restricts movement. The women weren’t even able to see the support person during the scanning process.
Having the man offer his hand for the woman to hold was about the only intervention possible in this setting. Not surprisingly, the results show there was a healthy reduction in the stress response when test subjects were supported. Stimulation in the regions of the brain that regulate physiological arousal and coordinate large muscles and joints was significantly decreased, no matter who was holding the woman’s hand. However, when it was her husband’s hand she was holding, the response was significantly greater.
Coan said, “When you’re holding a spouse’s hand, you get down-regulation in all of those same systems. But all the other systems that have to do with the conscious regulation of your emotions — having to pay attention to what’s happening with your body and having to become more vigilant for future dangers — all of these other systems come down as well. Your brain doesn’t work as hard when it’s your spouse. What surprised Coan and his colleagues most was the relaxation response demonstrated by what they called “super couples.” In those couples with exceptionally high-quality relationships, “Hand-holding had a significantly greater effect on soothing their brains.”
Tests showed differences involving two structures that were not affected at all in other test subjects. They observed evidence of reduced release of stress hormones by the hypothalamus. These hormones are responsible for inhibiting immune response and other activities that have critical implications for health and well-being.
Of greater interest was the reduction of activity in the right anterior insula. This brain structure modulates the amount of pain stimulus one experiences subjectively. Reduction of activity in this area means test subjects actually felt less pain when they held their husband’s hand.
So it can be said, having someone you love hold your hand really can take the hurt away.
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