Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 1999. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 146 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 141-146).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Los Angeles, 1992. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 240-248).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Princeton University, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 169-171).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago. / Includes bibliographical references.

Laurence J. Kotlikoff. / Includes index. / Bibliography: p. [497]-524.

Snow-free surfaces is needed for parking place, platform, and playground and even in city center square. With energy prices rising, energy saving is becoming a hot topic. Meanwhile environmental problems are becoming more and more serious, thus, the ways to saving energy is becoming an eye-catcher. So burring heating pipes underground has been a popular way to get ice-free surfaces. Using heating pipes for melting snow is much more efficient and more benefit for the environment comparing with using other methods.   In this project, an energy analysis of a football pitch with an area of 5000 m2 is carried out under a series of conditions between insulated and uninsulated construction. All calculations are done with the so-called finite element method (FEM), in the COMSOL. COMSOL is used for simulating and calculating the energy use with outdoor temperatures of -5 ºC and -10 ºC. Top layer materials concrete, grass and stone are also discussed. The ability of XPS and EPS insulation material is compared and noted. The models are divided into two parts, one is with snowfall and the other is without snowfall.   The results in the report shows that adding insulation under the heating pipe has significant energy saving potential. The surface with concrete layer has the best insulated ability, which can prevent more heat losses. The EPS insulated construction has a better performance in keeping more heat in the soil.

The skyrocketing amount of electricity consumed by many data centers around the globe has become a serious issue for the cloud computing and entire IT industry. The demand for data centers is rapidly increasing due to widespread usage of cloud services. It also leads to huge carbon emissions contributing to the global greenhouse effect. The US Environmental Protection Agency has declared that data centers represent a substantial portion of the energy consumption in the US and the whole world. Some of this energy consumption is caused by idle servers or servers running at higher-than-necessary frequencies. Due to the Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) technology enabled in many CPUs, strategically reducing CPU frequency without affecting the Quality of Service (QoS) is desired. Our goal in this paper is to calculate and tune to the best CPU frequency for each running task combined with two commonly-used scheduling approaches, namely round robin and first fit algorithms, given the CPU configuration and the execution deadline. The effectiveness of our algorithms is evaluated under a CloudSim/CloudReport simulation environment as well as real hypervisor computer system with power gauge. The open source CloudReport, based on the CloudSim simulator, has been used to integrate our DVFS algorithm with the two scheduling algorithms to illustrate the efficiency of power saving in different scenarios. Furthermore, electricity consumption is measured and compared using power gauge of Watts Up meter.

This thesis aims at identifying the opportunities for saving energy, which are available to those working within the final link of the UK food system (i. e. at, or in relation to, the points of consumption). Substantial prospective savings exist, because relatively little attention has, as yet, been given to energy-thrift in food-preparation facilities. Within the food-service industry, cooking systems are characterised by high thermal capacities, excessive external surface temperatures and poorly-designed control systems. Catering staff, who use such appliances, are rarely trained to use energy wisely when preparing foods, and kitchens (and their associated dining facilities) tend to be designed without sufficient regard to energy-thrift. Similar problems prevail in domestic kitchens, but to a lesser extent because the cooks there usually pay (or contribute towards) the fuel bills. However, manufacturers still provide household appliances, which are unnecessarily energy-profligate. Furthermore most people have insufficient knowledge of the nutritional suitabilities and the primary-energy costs of their diets. Thus a major educational need exists, which must be satisfied if industrialised food systems are to become more energy efficient. This thesis attempts to make a contribution to this requirement, by analysing cooking systems, food-preparation facilities, kitchen operatives, and human diets from an energy-thrift perspective. Long-term savings (i. e. those achieved as a result of implementing the recommendations within a 15-year period) of approximately £1O p. a. (at 1987 prices) are predicted, although this could be increased substantially if Britons adopt more energy-efficient, yet nutritionally-balanced, diets.

Although saving plays an important role in our everyday lives, including the lives of children, we know little about how this capacity develops, including the factors affecting it and the most effective means to measure it. This study examines the impact of age, a verbal prompt to save, and how internal (children’s inhibitory control, impulsivity, attentional focus) and external factors (household income, parents’ level of education, parents’ saving practices with their child, and parents’ beliefs about the importance of saving) influence both children’s saving in a novel laboratory saving task and parent-reported saving. 187 children between 3 to 7 years of age participated in this study. In the laboratory saving task, which was based on the saving task by Metcalf and Atance (2011), children received tokens that they could exchange for a less desirable reward now, or save for a highly desirable reward three minutes later. Children were assigned to either the “prompt” or baseline condition. Children in the baseline condition only received basic instructions for completing the task, whereas children in the prompt condition received the additional reminder, before beginning the task, that they could save if they wanted to. Parent-reported saving was assessed with a questionnaire, asking parents about their child’s saving at home. The internal and external factors were also measured using questionnaires completed by parents. Results show that assigned condition was associated with whether or not children saved (“saving status”), and that higher inhibitory control and parents’ saving practices predicted increased parent-reported saving. These results show that internal and external factors impact children’s saving behaviour and provides a new paradigm for assessing saving in young children. Implications for future research and limitations are discussed.

No description available.