“Building performance evaluation: The case of McClay Library”

The government of the UK has set an ambitious target that all newly built homes be carbon neutral by 2016 and to achieving an overall 80% carbon emission by 2050. Carbon Trust in 2009 published a research revealing that non-domestic buildings accounted for 18% of the emissions in the UK. They argued that to achieve the targets of low carbon emission there is need for better building stock that are better used. The evaluation of the performance of buildings is therefore critical if the understanding of how they are used is to be known. This paper is a brief building performance evaluation of the newly build library at Queens University Belfast carried out during the summer of 2010. It employed the Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) methodology to assess its performance. The results reveal that despite the intelligent technologies in the building there was a mismatch between the measured data and the perception of users of its performance. The study suggests the need for further study for reasons of dichotomy of the data. Keywords: building performance evaluation, carbon reduction strategies, passive environmental design techniques, active renewable energy technologies, Northern Ireland

Moving Object Scanning Apparatus and Method

Apparatus for scanning a moving object includes a visible waveband sensor oriented to collect a series of images of the object as it passes through a field of view. An image processor uses the series of images to form a composite image. The image processor stores image pixel data for a current image and predecessor image in the series. It uses information in the current image and its predecessor to analyse images and derive likelihood measures indicating probabilities that current image pixels correspond to parts of the object. The image processor estimates motion between the current image and its predecessor from likelihood weighted pixels. It generates the composite image from frames positioned according to respective estimates of object image motion. Image motion may alternatively be detected be a speed sensor such as Doppler radar sensing object motion directly and providing image timing signals

A European perspective on progress in moving away from the mouse bioassay for marine-toxin analysis

This review considers the ethical and technical problems currently associated with employing mouse bioassays for marine-toxin analysis and the challenges and the difficulties that alternative methods must overcome before being deemed applicable for implementation into a regulatory monitoring regime. We discuss proposed alternative methods, classified as functional, immunological and analytical, for well-established European toxins as well as emerging toxins in European waters, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages. We also consider emerging tools and technologies for future toxin analysis.