Cecilia Aragón

The use of Type Ia supernovae as distance indicators led to the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe a decade ago. Now that large second generation surveys have significantly increased the size and quality of the high-redshift sample, the cosmological constraints are limited by the currently available sample of ~50 cosmologically useful nearby supernovae. The Nearby Supernova Factory addresses this problem by discovering nearby supernovae and observing their spectrophotometric time development. Our data sample includes over 2400 spectra from spectral timeseries of 185 supernovae. This talk presents results from a portion of this sample including a Hubble diagram and a description of some analyses using this rich dataset.

Residential thermostats control a substantial portion of both fuel and electrical energy--9% of the total energy consumption in the U.S. Consumers install programmable thermostats to save energy, yet numerous recent studies found that homes with programmable thermostats can use more energy than those controlled manually depending on how--or if--they are used. At the same time, thermostats are undergoing a dramatic increase in capability and features, including control of ventilation, responding to electricity price signals, and interacting with a home area network. These issues warrant a review of the current state of thermostats, evaluating their effectiveness in providing thermal comfort and energy savings, and identifying areas for further improvement or research. This review covers the evolution in technologies of residential thermostats; we found few standards and many features. We discuss studies of how people currently use thermostats, finding that nearly half do not use the programming features. The review covers the complications associated with using a thermostat. Finally, we suggest research needed to designdand especially test with usersdthermostats that can provide more comfortable and economical indoor environments.