What makes a passive house a passive home?

On Saturday, Duke Smart Home students hosted Iowa State professor Mikesch Muecke to share his knowledge of sustainable building techniques. Muecke’s presentation focused on passive housing. A passive house can maintain a comfortable indoor climate without relying upon active heating and cooling systems. Specialized designs make this possible, utilizing the natural light and heat of the sun, as well as super-efficient insulation to reduce heating or cooling loss. The Smart Home utilizes some of these techniques in its own design. [ More about passive houses ]

In this way, “architects are responsible for a big chunk of energy use,” Muecke said.



The basic features of a passive home include:

• compact form and good insulation


• southern orientation and shade considerations


• energy-efficient window glazing and frames


• air-tightness of the building


• highly efficient heat recovery from exhaust air


• hot water supply using regenerative energy sources


• energy-saving household appliances

Passive homes require substantially less energy than their actively heated and cooled counterparts. If a passive home is fitted with solar panels, sometimes it even produces surplus energy that can be fed back into the energy grid. In other words, instead of a homeowner paying the electricity company, it pays them. Not a bad deal.

Muecke also discussed the Solar Decathlon, an international competition hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy in which students compete to design and build the best energy-efficient, solar powered house. The finished homes are shipped to Washington D.C. and displayed on the National Mall. For a week, the houses are open to the public, and are evaluated by experts in terms of their architecture, market viability, engineering, lightning design, comfort zone, and other criteria.

In 2007, the last year the competition was held, Germany’s Technische Universitat Darmstadt took first place. But come this October, Muecke and his team from Iowa State University have their eye on it. [ Check out Iowa State’s passive home concept ]

When Robots can think

Strengthening control sensing capabilities and artificial intelligence of robots is a prime objective for a lot of the current ongoing research in robotics.

Duke's Robotics and Manufacturing Automation Laboratory (RAMA labs), headed by Professor Devendra P. Garg, conducts excessive research in various fields, including mobile sensor development and robot-World Wide Web interfacing.

The focus of the team is also on the highly significant area of Artifical intelligence, and they are currently exploring ways of using neural networks and fuzzy logic to make the robots learn from their mistakes.

The aim is to be able to successfully design an intelligent automated system, and research on Swarm intelligence and control, industrial robotics and sensor fusion research conducted at the RAMA labs is closing in on the gap to achieve that goal.

The RAMA labs also collaborate with the Army Research Office, initiated by Professor Garg and is titled "Intelligent Multi-Sensor Modeling".


For his extraordinary contributions in the field of mechanical engineering and robotics, the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) has also created an award in Professor Garg's honor called the "Devendra P.Garg Award for Intelligent Systems".

Professor Garg was also honored with the prestigious Hind Rattan Award (Jewel of India) in 2007 during the Republic Day of India in January.

Just Art?

“There’s a music in ideas, a poetry in justice.”

So said Justice Albie Sachs last Wednesday, as the Nasher Museum of Art hosted him for a presentation and discussion entitled “The Place of Art in Rendering Justice.” The design of South Africa’s Constitutional Court building was the focus of the event. Srinivas Aravamudan, soon-to-be Dean of Humanities, gave a thought-provoking introduction. Following a 19-minute film, professor Catherine Admay questioned Sachs about his work and his involvement with the construction of the Constitutional Court. Members of the audience also were able to ask questions at the end.

The Constitutional Court building is located in Johannesburg, on the site of an Apartheid-era prison. In creating the building, designers deliberately tried to incorporate the site’s horrible history, instead of burying it; 150,000 bricks from old prison buildings were used in the new structure. By referencing prison conditions, the building hopes to memorialize the suffering that occurred during the Apartheid, and to prevent it from happening again.

But at the same time, the building aims to uplift and inspire. Whereas South Africans might have feared to enter an Apartheid-era courthouse, Sachs said, the new Constitutional Court is welcoming, august but not austere. It features beautiful artwork and abundant natural light. Artists from around the country donated their works in the interest of participating in South Africa’s cultural history, and beautifying what could have been a formidable structure. [ Take a virtual tour. ]

“[We thought] the art should be integrated, not applied, into the building,” Sachs said. “Art requires intelligence. Justice requires emotion.”

Originally a lawyer, Sachs was an anti-Apartheid fighter and activist with the African National Conference. A Constitutional Court Justice since 1996, Sachs was instrumental in creating the Bill of Rights for the South African Constitution after Apartheid. Since then, Sachs has written numerous articles about the importance of human rights and the legal basis for protecting them.

While at Duke, Sachs visited three undergraduate classes, including two of Professor Admay’s. Sachs also was interviewed on video about his life as part of Duke’s Living History Program.

Science Education Goes Virtual

Friday’s Visualization Forum featured former Duke students David McMullen and Marcel Yang unveiling their innovative virtual-reality learning tool for teaching how alcohol is absorbed by the body. The project is an independent study with Duke professors Rochelle Schwartz-Bloom and Rachael Brady. Aimed toward college students, the program utilizes Duke’s Immersive Virtual Environment (DiVE) to give an acute spatial understanding of the chemical processes that take place.

Calm, voice-of-God narration describes the different stages of alcohol absorption and the enzyme mechanisms involved. The program also discusses genetic variation and differing levels of susceptibility to alcoholism.

To get students engaged, the program has a fair amount of interactivity built in. Students observe chemical reactions and then are given the chance to recreate them, using a wand to direct placement of molecules and enzymes. The narration guides student’s actions, gently instructing them when they don’t fit the pieces together correctly.

There are many benefits to learning in such a hands-on environment. However, McMullen and Yang admit that many distractions are present as well, especially for users who have never experienced DiVE before.

“You’ll get people’s attention when they’re in there -- but focused on what?” McMullen said.

Schwartz-Bloom said she noticed some students gazing all around the room during the demonstration, and not paying attention to instruction. Certainly, this is a challenge the researchers hope to overcome.

As part of their research, McMullen and Yang had to evaluate the relative success of their program compared to other learning methods (PC version of the program or a paper handout). They found that DiVE had an advantage in some areas. However, they also discovered some flaws in the design of the experiment and are in the process of correcting them.

In the future, they plan to establish more valid achievement assessments and to test whether DiVE aids in long term retention of details and concepts. The team is working hard to prepare for the Visualization Challenge, May 1.

A computer-based version of the program was created to make it more widely accessible. The software will be available on the internet soon for public use.