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- Member of: Center for Earth Systems Engineering and Management
- Member of: Pannabecker, Virginia
Study Background: Researchers at ASU have determined that significant energy and environmental benefits are possible in the Phoenix metro area over the next 60 years from transit-oriented development along the current Valley Metro light rail line. The team evaluated infill densification outcomes when vacant lots and some dedicated surface parking lots are repurposed for residential development. Life cycle building (construction, use, and energy production) and transportation (manufacturing, operation, and energy production) changes were included and energy use and greenhouse gas emissions were evaluated in addition to the potential for respiratory impacts and smog formation. All light rail infill scenarios are compared against new single family home construction in outlying areas.
Overview of Results: In the most conservative scenario, the Phoenix area can place 2,200 homes near light rail and achieve 9-15% reductions in energy use and emissions. By allowing multi-family apartments to fill vacant lots, 12,000 new dwelling units can be infilled achieving a 28-42% reduction. When surface lots are developed in addition to vacant lots then multi-family apartment buildings around light rail can deliver 30-46% energy and environmental reductions. These reductions occur even after new trains are put into operation to meet the increased demand.
In his writings over the past decade, Brad Allenby has proposed (at least) 16 principles of sustainable engineering (see references) that are collectively known as the Earth Systems Engineering and Management (ESEM) principles. These principles have merit and applicability in many disciplines and domains of discourse, but are sometimes awkward to use due to the quantity of words required to accurately express their meaning. In light of this, it has become necessary to formulate a simplified list of “abbreviated tags” for ease of reference in conversation and concise writing. This list of tags also makes the principles immediately accessible to those who may want to pursue the more thorough definitions offered by Allenby. The following tags have been proposed for use when a concise phrasing is required. The citation provided after the tag is, in my opinion, the most complete expression of Allenby’s thought on this principle. It can be used when citing the principle in written assignments or publications.
Public transportation systems are often part of strategies to reduce urban environmental impacts from passenger transportation, yet comprehensive energy and environmental life-cycle measures, including upfront infrastructure effects and indirect and supply chain processes, are rarely considered. Using the new bus rapid transit and light rail lines in Los Angeles, near-term and long-term life-cycle impact assessments are developed, including consideration of reduced automobile travel. Energy consumption and emissions of greenhouse gases and criteria pollutants are assessed, as well the potential for smog and respiratory impacts.
Results show that life-cycle infrastructure, vehicle, and energy production components significantly increase the footprint of each mode (by 48–100% for energy and greenhouse gases, and up to 6200% for environmental impacts), and emerging technologies and renewable electricity standards will significantly reduce impacts. Life-cycle results are identified as either local (in Los Angeles) or remote, and show how the decision to build and operate a transit system in a city produces environmental impacts far outside of geopolitical boundaries. Ensuring shifts of between 20–30% of transit riders from automobiles will result in passenger transportation greenhouse gas reductions for the city, and the larger the shift, the quicker the payback, which should be considered for time-specific environmental goals.
This study seeks to examine how the introduction of residential solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) will affect urban air quality. Both the life-cycle and operations emissions profiles of an SOFC are compared with the baseload electricity generating technologies that widespread adoption of SOFCs would replace – coal fired, natural gas combined cycle, and nuclear. The monetary impacts from use phase emissions are then assessed in five water-vulnerable cities in which SOFCs would likely be adopted in order to increase local resilience to electricity failures as a result of water shortages. The SOFC system under study is a 1 kWe system of planar design intended for residential CHP. The excess heat from the SOFC is used to heat domestic hot water. Analysis of the SOFC system life-cycle includes raw materials extraction and processing, component manufacturing, SOFC manufacturing, natural gas fuel processing and distribution, SOFC use, as well as energy used in these processes. Life-cycle analysis of the baseload power systems is bounded similarly. Emissions tracked for this study include SOx, NOx, VOCs, PM10, and PM2.5.
Sustainable mobility policy for long-distance transportation services should consider emerging automobiles and aircraft as well as infrastructure and supply chain life-cycle effects in the assessment of new high-speed rail systems. Using the California corridor, future automobiles, high-speed rail and aircraft long-distance travel are evaluated, considering emerging fuel-efficient vehicles, new train designs and the possibility that the region will meet renewable electricity goals. An attributional per passenger-kilometer-traveled life-cycle inventory is first developed including vehicle, infrastructure and energy production components. A consequential life-cycle impact assessment is then established to evaluate existing infrastructure expansion against the construction of a new high-speed rail system. The results show that when using the life-cycle assessment framework, greenhouse gas footprints increase significantly and human health and environmental damage potentials may be dominated by indirect and supply chain components. The environmental payback is most sensitive to the number of automobile trips shifted to high-speed rail, and for greenhouse gases is likely to occur in 20–30 years. A high-speed rail system that is deployed with state-of-the-art trains, electricity that has met renewable goals, and in a configuration that endorses high ridership will provide significant environmental benefits over existing modes. Opportunities exist for reducing the long-distance transportation footprint by incentivizing large automobile trip shifts, meeting clean electricity goals and reducing material production effects.
Methods: "a student's education is only as valuable as the information that a student has access to" Matt Cooper (president of the National Association of Graduate and Professional Students, 2012). Evidence-based practice is no longer a new concept in health professions or education, but its integration into allied health higher education curricula and its inclusion by health professionals in everyday, lifelong practice still presents challenges. One challenge is affordable access to research study findings and data, and to resources that index such information. A librarian from a public, research-1 university will draw from experiences and practices at her institution, and from a review of such at similar institutions. She will present methods to promote: use of open access and open educational resources, greater participation in these movements, and curriculum-related applications.
Results: This flipped presentation will include an overview of top overall and health sciences-related open access and open educational resources: how to find them and suggestions for evaluation criteria. It will also include options to promote and use Creative Commons search and licensing for discovering and sharing materials licensed for others to use, reuse, and adapt. Methods for promoting open access and open educational resources in higher educational and other settings will follow, with a final overview of newly expanding options for do-it-yourself and open science initiatives including opportunities for involvement in health research and innovation.
Conclusions: Join us, and bring your laptop, tablet, or mobile device! This presentation will be a "flipped presentation," with a brief (ten-to-fifteen minutes) voice-over PowerPoint presentation sent out ahead of time. The in-person session will offer a hands-on approach with opportunities to delve into using one or more major sources of open access or open educational resources to discover resources to recommend for supporting curricula, professional development, or training. You will also have a chance to collaborate with colleagues and explore ideas for promotional events and materials to build awareness of open access and open education initiatives. Leave with first-hand knowledge of new resources and an action plan for an event to promote these important initiatives within your community.
Methods: Facilitating open access publishing, best practices in literature reviews, scholarly research writing, clinical research data management, preservation, and accessibility: all of these are areas that librarians are working to support in many institutions. In this paper, two librarians from two research-1 universities provide a brief review of relevant literature. They follow with lessons learned and best practices identified during experiences as part of graduate student or faculty learning and working groups. These include: participation in a clinical research evaluation course; being a coauthor during writing, submitting, and revising of a scholarly peer-reviewed article, and negotiating copyright terms with an academic publisher; and participating in a faculty writing group for mutual motivation and constructive commentary on in-process writing projects.
Results: In this observational and participative study, the authors found that by taking advantage of opportunities to join groups in their research communities, they expanded their own skill sets while also expanding their contextual understanding of researcher support needs, including faculty, instructors, researchers, and graduate students. Through physical and online participation in learning, training, and working spaces along with their constituent communities, the authors built strong connections and mutual understanding. By being present (online or in-person) when questions occurred, they increased opportunities to provide in-context support for literature review searching techniques; citation management tools; copyright, journal selection, and publishing questions; and data management planning.
Conclusions: Each profession, discipline, and employment has its learning communities, informal or time-specific subgroups that come about as needed or for required trainings. Learning communities are where those in a given discipline or employment explore tasks in a collaborative setting and learn together, developing new skills and mastery through practice with peer and expert feedback. Such communities might take the form of a course on clinical research, an informal writing group, a seminar series, or even a cross-department event-planning group. By joining such groups, librarians can build on common experiences to form stronger relationships with their communities, gaining two critical benefits: (1) opportunities to provide research and information expertise in context and (2) greater recognition as part of the community and of what librarians do and their areas of expertise.
As a Health Sciences Librarian at a large public research university, requests for one off library sessions, or online how-to support, to teach evidence-based practice (EBP) research skills are common. Having mastered brief 'hands-on' activities to practice skills learned, I was ready to branch out, and so were some faculty with whom I work, especially in the fields of Nutrition, Exercise, and Wellness. For Spring 2013 I worked with faculty to try pre-class time assignments followed by participatory, hands-on, student reporting (flipped) class sessions on:
1. Finding the source of research reported in health news articles.
2. Identifying high level EBP research studies on a nutrition topic.
3. Exploring career and research tools in Kinesiology.
This session will include a brief overview of each case study with discussion opportunities.