Experimental and Numerical Analysis of a Novel Display Case Design: Case Study of the Renovated Anne Frank House

ABSTRACT

Many museums are housed in historic buildings, sometimes the building itself is part of the museum collection. Creating a stable environment by providing a nearly constant temperature and relative humidity at correct levels decreases the risk of object degradation. Maintaining this steady indoor environment, however, increases energy consumption and risks to the historic building. Museum display cases offer a solution to the mitigation of risks to which valuable objects may be subjected by providing an extra layer of protection to indoor climate fluctuations. The Anne Frank House is a historic house museum located in Amsterdam. The museum has undergone several renovations in the last years to deal with an increase in the number of visitors to over 1.2 million a year. The original diaries and other documents of Anne Frank are permanently on display in the Anne Frank House. With the recent refurbishment the possibility arose to design a new state-of-the-art display case. This study presents the results of the experimental research related to the design, performed in-situ. The temperature and relative humidity in the new exhibition space and inside the new display cases were monitored to gain insight into the hygrothermal behavior of these controlled environments. A complementary numerical study was performed to investigate effects of dynamic climate control of the exhibition gallery and climate conditions in the display case under various circumstances. Four main conclusions are presented in this paper. The investigated display case design is able to provide a stable relative humidity environment by means of silica gel, while using an active box-in-box climate control system to create stable temperature conditions. The inner case temperature depends on the temperature supplied by the display case air handling unit. Protocols must be in place in case of malfunction or failure of the climate control system of the display case. The air handling unit of the case needs to be shut off to create a passive environment for the objects on display until necessary actions are taken. Exhibition gallery set points can be less stringent when susceptible museum objects are on display in the display case. The environments are separated and provide an opportunity for energy saving set point strategies. The last conclusion drawn is that the numerical study provides valuable insight into imposing dynamic control of set points for temperature and relative humidity in the exhibition gallery and the effect on the display case environment.     

Cheating Behaviors among Undergraduate College Students: Results from a Factorial Survey

Using a factorial survey administered to college students at two Universities, this study examines students’ tendencies to engage in academic misconduct. The relation of strain, self-control, and deterrence theories to likelihood of cheating are further explored. The results suggest that increasing the severity of the punishment for cheating does not deter academic misconduct; however, several variables indicating an increased certainty of being caught did decrease the likelihood of cheating behaviors. Only the strain variables that indicated a student had an ill family member or that the student found the course difficult significantly increased academic misconduct. Although self-control did not have a direct effect on cheating it indirectly affected cheating behaviors through students’ perceptions of getting caught and their perception of wrongfulness of the cheating behavior. Policy and future research implications of the findings are further discussed.     

The effects of Florida's university admission policies on black and white entering freshmen, 1975–76

This study examined differential enrollment, survival, progress, and academic success of both black and white first-time-in-college students according to three admission categories (unrestrictive, restrictive, and special) in predominantly white universities in the Florida State University System. Data were extracted from the Board of Regents' student data course files and analyzed. White students were enrolled almost exclusively in the traditional (unrestrictive) category, while black students were almost equally enrolled in all three categories. Although the overall survival rate of white students was higher than that of black students, within each admission category, the survival rate of black students was higher than that of white students.This paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston, April 1980.     

A First Course in Mind, Brain, and Education

ABSTRACT— We describe what may well be the first course devoted explicitly to the topic of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE). In the course, students examine four central topics (literacy, numeracy, emotion/motivation, and conceptual change) through the perspectives of psychology, neuroscience, genetics, and education. We describe the pedagogical tools we use to develop the skills critical for synthesizing information across the disciplines associated with MBE.