Or a double-digit decline in crime rates without a double-digit increase in the size of your police force?
Using data analysis technology from Council Lead Partner Microsoft, they are able to position officers where they will make the biggest difference.
This helps make police proactive, rather than reactive. Instead of chasing criminals, officers are increasingly able to stop them before they commit crimes.
How it works Microsoft Domain Awareness System gets most of the attention for its work in preventing crimes.
Police departments can use it to analyze trends and other data so that they know where crimes are most likely to occur
and assign officers accordingly. But it also goes beyond that. It impossible to prevent every crime
Built by police officers While the analytics were built by Microsoft, New york city police officers guided the development. Police officers described their biggest pain points
and brainstormed ways that data analysis could help address them. It was built to solve real-life problems.
For example if a suspicious package is left, police can immediately review camera footage to determine who left it.
If theye looking for a suspect and they know what car he drives, they can see where the car has been in recent days and months.
Investigators can map crime history both by location and time to reveal trends. And if a radiation alarm goes off,
the system can evaluate other data sources to determine if it actually dangerous, or if it a harmless type that naturally occurring
or used in medical treatments. Other cities using the system benefit from New york work and they can provide their own suggestions.
Advances are shared by everyone; all participating cities are made safer. A day without serious crime New york,
which has been working for decades to reduce crime, continued to make dramatic progress after deploying the Domain Awareness System in 2012.
There were 35%fewer murders last year than in 2011. Car thefts are down 17%.%Robberies are down 16%.
%The Foothill area of Los angeles actually went an entire day without serious crime last year,
possibly the first time that has happened ever in the 50 years the Los angeles Police department has been responsible for that area.
That was no small accomplishment. The area covers 50 square miles and is home to 250,000 people.
Doesn break the budget Microsoft is quick to point out that these benefits are available to cities of any size at a very modest investment.
And they already collect crime data. It the analytics that truly make all that useful,
and that an incremental investment. Adding more police officers is expensive and can be given almost impossible the budget struggles most cities face today.
As a number of cities have already found, a relatively small investment can make an existing police force more effective, making communities safer s
#Thumbs up: Dutch solar bike path performs better than expected We told you last fall about a bike path near Amsterdam referred to as Solaroad.
pave roads with solar panels that could eventually provide power for street lights and traffic controls, and maybe even homes and electric vehicles.
Sustainable Business reports the short stretch of bike path has produced already more power than anticipated. The 230-foot stretch has produced 3, 000 kilowatt-hours of power,
How does it work? The project is a public-private effort involving the Dutch province of Noord-Holland and TNO,
What the engineers came up with was a system of prefabricated concrete covered by solar panels
The challenge was to develop a surface strong enough to withstand the weight of large vehicles such as buses
and trucks while at the same time capable of resisting dirt and skids. The engineers are now working on improving the glass layer to prevent it from shrinking when temperatures change.
The panels in the $3. 7 million project are linked to smart meters that increase their output
and provide electricity for the grid or street lights. The netherlands is not a top producer of solar power,
Renewable energy now accounts for a little less than 9%of electricity used in the country. The project developers believe about 20%of the country roads would be suitable for solar panel installations.
A somewhat different approach in the U s. Idaho-based Solar Roadways has been working on a similar goal paving roads and other surfaces with solar panels.
And the company has plenty of supporters. Solar Roadways secured an $850, 000 Federal Highway Administration grant for a pilot project
Solar Roadways developed its first road panel in 2009 and with the help of additional grants, finished up an experimental solar-paneled parking lot last year.
It plans to use money from its successful crowdfunding to take the version of the panels it used for that project into production i
Just as the smart grid is the new reality for the energy industry, smart water networks are the new face of the water utility industry.
Council Lead Partner Schneider Electric outlines the importance of data analytics and other technologies in transforming a dumb water network into an efficient,
The benefits of incorporating data analysis into a water network are better performance with the possibility of improved customer service,
On the technology side, smart water networks include the integration of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA),
meter data management solutions, advanced metering and automated meter reading and more. Those all enhance the ability to prevent the water loss prevalent in dumb systems through leak detection and control, pressure management, equipment repairs and asset management,
#Utah nearly eliminates homelessness with solution that sounds too simple to work It sounds like a solution a child might offer:
and found that it really works. Utah cut homelessness by so much that it now tracks the remaining homeless by name--not number.
And its approach didn break the bank. The state estimates the savings in the millions of dollars.
The savings are so great, it doesn bother to calculate a total. Over the past 10 years, the program has cut the number of chronic homeless in the state by 91%--drawing the attention of the Washington post
and NBC News. And even after giving the housing away, the state still saves $8, 000 per year per formerly homeless person.
A University of Pennsylvania study, however, found the homeless seem to waste opportunities because they don have housing.
This 2001 study inspired Utah efforts. The study tracked 4, 000 people in New york city for four years--two years living on streets,
two years in housing provided by the city. While homeless, they cost the city more than $40
000 for shelter, jail and hospital services. That same amount of money could provide them more permanent housing, comprehensive health care and employment services."
"A considerable amount of public dollars is spent essentially maintaining people in a state of homelessness,"Dennis Culhane,
the study lead author, wrote at the time. The idea is the homeless don end up in jail because theye bad people per se.
The problem seems to be that all of the instability in their lives is a tremendous obstacle that prevents them from making meaningful changes.
when the homeless have to prove theye gotten help before they get housing. Housing comes firstutah housed 17 people in the first year of its program.
The state program is called Housing First --and the fact that housing does come first appears to be a main reason why the initiative is so successful.
Other cities and states provide housing, but no area has come close to Utah success rate.
Today, there are so few chronically homeless people in Utah that the state knows the names and stories of each one.
The formerly homeless can get mental health treatment counseling or other services to help them overcome their demons,
and slept on the floor the first few weeks she was in her new house.
She had lived with so much disruption that it took that long for her to grasp that the house really was hers.
New york began giving housing to the mentally ill in 1990, but there was some concern the program,
This fourth phase, called NY/NY IV, will create 5, 000 new supportive housing units,
nearly doubling the housing available in the first 25 years of the program. Still, homeless advocates say that well short of the 30,000 units that are needed there.
Washington, D c.,meanwhile, began providing housing to the chronically homeless in 2008 and was on track to essentially end homelessness by next year.
###Kevin Ebi is a staff writer and social media coordinator for the Council. Follow@smartccouncil on Twitter.
More resources issecting ISO 37120: Gimme shelter, please! The homeless challenge cities facehow technology is helping cities help their homelessdata sharing helps NYC improve health and human services deliver d
#Johannesburg readies for a smarter future with digital interns Cities worldwide share a daunting challenge:
000 students in the IT industry to ensure the city has the talent it needs, according to an article in IT News Africa.
The city has partnered with Council Lead Partners Cisco and Microsoft in addition to Fiberco, the Technology Innovation Agency and Nunnovation Africa Foundation on the program.
Students selected for the program will have the opportunity to see smart cities connectivity in action in other countries.
The first group of students is immersed now in an intensive four-month technical training program. During the program launch, Johannesburg Mayor Parks Tau said"This program will go a long way in improving IT skills and expertise in Johannesburg.
Check a university course catalogmicrosoft targets TV white spaces to improve education in Afric n
In the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco city in Tianjin, China, Itron deployed one network that runs three meters--water, electricity and gas.
Council Lead Partners IBM Microsoft, andcisco and Associate Partner Siemens have been working with Chinese companies on national information security as well as technologies
and solutions to support the growth of smart cities there. Council Lead Partner Itron, meanwhile, completed installation of smart water, heat and gas meters and communication modules as well as its fixed network for Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco city in Tianjin, China.
The need is certainly realone of the primary drivers for smart city upgrades throughout the world has been an influx of people from rural and outlying areas
which is expected to continue for at least 10 more years. Cities with their finite resources and budgets, have no choice
but to come up with innovative solutions to provide livable environments, sound economies and enough services to accommodate the growth.
Also, as the Eco-Business article notes, cities in Asia and Africa will be responsible for 90%of the world's population growth until 2050.
Navigant Research expects investments in smart city information and communications technology (ICT) will reach $63. 4 billion in the Asia Pacific region between 2014 and 2023.
what makes smart cities work, some experts in the field question"smart"technology as a universal fix-all."
"I don't want to live in a place where computers run my life. You're installing a whole bunch of computers
which will do a whole variety of things but you're forgetting that cities are for people.
And it's people who make cities, "Asit Biswas said in the Eco-Business piece.
"We are talking about 600 million people who do not have 24-hour access to electricity.
Oregon-based writer specializing in technology and energy
#Argentine greenhouse robot brings automation to the masses BUENOS AIRES--The new Trakür agricultural robot does not have the brains, firepower or complexity of one of the Transformers,
but that may be its greatest charm. The Trakür, which means"fog"in the indigenous Mapuche language,
is the fruit of a three-year program undertaken by Argentina's state-run National Institute of Agricultural technology (INTA,
for its Spanish initials) to promote automation in Argentine greenhouse agrobusiness. Designed to apply pesticides in greenhouses,
the Trakür is meant to increase production of vegetables and flowers while protecting farm workers--who in the past would apply pesticides by hand--from the toxicity of the chemicals."
"When one applies these chemicals in a confined environment like a greenhouse, one likelihood of intoxication increases notably,
"said project coordinator Gerardo Masiá. In an economy as heavily dependent on agriculture as Argentina's, boosting production
and protecting workers are vitally important. But what might be most interesting about the Trakür is its cost.
Designed for small farmers who, because of Argentina's regular economic collapses, are not eager or able to make large investments,
the robot will have a price tag of about a third of comparable commercial models. Thus, the Trakür could make farm automation possible not only for small farmers in Argentina
but also for those in developing countries around the globe. Greenhouse robots are generally small wheeled vehicles that carry a tank of pesticide,
a sprayer to distribute the liquid, and a processor to run the show. The Trakür is no exception.
Developed in the suburbs of Buenos aires by INTA's rural engineering division, the yellow and white robot resembles a child's Tonka truck (the chassis) with a lighthouse (the sprayer) strapped to the top.
But its construction is unique. Weighing in at about 90 lbs. not including battery), the robot is built entirely from off-the-shelf parts.
The robot's operator watches the Trakür's progress through a cheap security camera mounted on its hood, for example."
"It not an invention at all. The parts are available from local industry. They are standard components,
"Masiá said. A wireless transmitter on the robot sends camera video and sensor data such as the unit's speed,
the dose being applied, and the amount of remaining chemical to a computer outside the greenhouse, where an operator directs the Trakür virtually.
For its guidance system, the Trakür employs sensors that allow it to follow a 1 mm copper cable,
installed on top of or just below the soil's surface, that carries a mild electonic charge of less than one volt."
or cameras and algorithms or satellite GPS, this is guided by a cable that emits a electromagnetic signal.
A GPS SYSTEM with differential correction would cost an Argentine farmer about $10 000, Masiá said,
not including the robot's chassis, motor, pump and electronics.""Purchased abroad, it very likely that would cost you some $20, 000 all told.
If we were to develop something great at a very elevated price, they never adopt it
The country's history of economic collapses, high import taxes and import restrictions has forced Argentines to become skillful at low cost design
In a vein similar to the Trakür, a group at an Argentine university lab has designed a low-cost prosthetic hand called Electromioprótesis (at a price of $2, 500 versus a usual $8, 000),
and the country's National Atomic energy commission (CNEA, in Spanish) is pushing forward with the design of a small, low-cost atomic energy reactor called CAREM.
When the 29-year-old turned to the police for help they said only missing cases that are deemed suspicious
(thus criminal) by police are allocated search resources. O'Keeffe decided to take matters into her own hands,
use social media, work with police and get help from the general public. The digital guide is the outcome of O'Keeffe's collaboration with Studio Thick
an organization that calls its work service or citizen-centered design. Often dubbed"practical innovation,
and wants of users and service providers taken into account. Studio Thick's co-director Damon O'sullivan explains the key difference is about getting the model right from the start."
MPAN has been accessed 6, 000 times by users in Australia, the United kingdom, the United states and Germany.
According to the Australian Federal Police, over 35,000 Australians are reported missing annually. The MPAN guide has proven so effective that the police are now directing the public to the site.
While O'Keeffe is in search of sponsorship and government funding, the maintenance of the guide is covered by publicly raised funds.
Oeeffe experience exemplifies the findings of a 2013 report from public relations firm Edelman, highlighting growing distrust among the global public in their government.
our health care to be patient-centric and our education to be student-centric, "O'sullivan explains of the growing market opportunity."
"Better digital platforms and technology have meant all of this is possible now.""Another player in this space is Codesignstudio,
a community-oriented design studio that has applied the concept to a physical environment in their recent project Headspace, a youth mental-health centre.
"Mapping the user journey Elsewhere, Melbourne's Huddle has launched recently Smart Blocks, a collaboration with the Australian government.
This action-oriented site helps apartment owners and renters implement energy efficiency in their shared property with templates
and a step-by-step guide to help cut out the paperwork. Before creating the site, the Melbourne studio conducted design research among the user group which included in depth interviews and mapping the user journey,
to gain insight into community-style apartments, and the needs and expectations of owners and managers.
They then used this information to develop prototypes which they tested with the users before launching the service."
"Customer response to the service has been extremely positive, Huddle's Director Inge van der Poel says. eople could see that the studio had integrated their perspectives and expectations into the design of the service.
Co-creation is all part of the citizen-centric way of thinking.""All three studios are examples of designers that have placed public good at the heart of their practice."
Tech brings project filing mentality to email For now, at least, email remains one of the most widely methods of business collaboration and communication--for sharing business intelligence in its truest form.
But, oh, the pain of keeping it organized over time and over multiple projects. Addition of search tools and folders,
Enter Recommind's Decisiv Email, an add-on for Microsoft Outlook that manages messages from a collaborative perspective.
Decisiv Email offers more than a carbon-copy of what's going on it works behind-the-scenes to analyze
and tag messages --and then to file them and archive them appropriately. After making an assessment about the content,
the software either files that message in a folder that it believes relevant on its own
or it prompts the sender or recipient to place it in a folder. It doesn't create duplicate copies of the messages,
That's what makes Decisiv email different from the rules that you can add to your individual email system.
whether or not you were copied on the email. How automatic that tagging process winds up being is up to your individual organization:
to make sure that critical emails are accessible to all important personnel, mainly for operational purposes but also useful from a compliance standpoint.
said the idea behind Decisiv Email is to help make it simpler for organizations to find
that you have to use Outlook for the categorization to happen. Recommind is working on tablet and smartphone integration.
What about privacy, you ask? A tool like Decisiv Email will definitely make you think twice about what you write in an email or about
what you decide to exclude.""Everything that you send in corporate email will be available for people to see
if it is relevant for the business, "Schueren said d
#When KI isn't enough, biotechs race to develop acute radiation drugs Since the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power station,
people around the world have been stockpiling potassium iodide (KI) but those provide little protection against the harmful effects of high-dose radiation toxicity.
Luckily, experimental products that combat cute radiation syndrome (ARS) have already been tested in people and could be on the cusp of market approval, Nature Medicine reports.
Nearly a quarter-million KI doses (pictured) have been amassed by evacuation centers near the site. But while those guard against the long-term risks of thyroid cancer linked with chronic radiation exposure
they do little for plant workers and emergency personnel in the event of a meltdown.
There is currently no approved treatment for ARS, the extreme radiation sickness associated with exposure to high doses of ionizing radiation over a short period of time.
Chernobyl caused 134 confirmed cases of ARS, almost one-third of the reported incidences worldwide.
If any workers at Fukushima are diagnosed with ARS, their treatment options are limited to antibiotics, blood transfusions,
and fluid supplements to deal with the symptoms of the disease. Doctors also sometimes administer cancer drugs to help the immune system rebound.
Now, however, several small biotech companies are racing to develop the first approved therapy for ARS,
using biologics and small molecules to halt radiation harmful effects in the field. Some block cell death and protect damaged tissue exposed to radiation;
others replace cells lost to exposure. CBLB502, developed by Cleveland Biolabs, binds an immune protein to activate a cell survival pathway.
The company has tested the product in 150 healthy volunteers in two phase 1 safety studies
and plans to submit an approval application by the end of next year. Ex-RAD from Onconova inhibits certain proteins involved in the regulation of cell death.
The molecule has been tested safety in more than 50 people, with few adverse effects reported. CLT-008 from Cellerant Therapeutics replaces blood stem cells lost due to exposure.
Those blood progenitor cells form mature infection-fighting and clotting blood cells when infused by intravenous drip.
Prochymal from Osiris Therapeutics is a stem cell therapy derived from adult bone marrow to treat organ damage due to radiation exposure.
AEOL-10150 of Aeolus Pharmaceuticals is a small molecule that reduces inflammation associated with radiation exposure.
which requires extensive efficacy data in animal models, but only demands safety testing in people.
and the Pandemic and All-Hazard Preparedness Act (signed into law 2 years later) allotted billions of dollars in funding for research into medical countermeasures to be used in the case of nuclear, chemical,
and biological attacks. These government awards include more than $500 million for the treatment and prevention of ARS.
they could be on the market before the next nuclear catastrophe strikes p
#Where GE is putting its latest $10b investment GE announced it will invest another $10 billion into its green energy R&d program with an aim of boosting the output of its wind turbines (while cutting costs), increasing power plant efficiency and perhaps,
most notably, coming up with a better, greener way of getting natural gas out of the ground through hydraulic fracturing.#
#The investment falls under GE's Ecoimagination program, a cross-company business initiative that has used already $12 billion
since 2005 to develop technology that saves money and reduces the environmental impact of its own operations as well as its customers.
That investment has paid off. A whole line of Ecoimagination products which have generated $160 billion in revenue
since the program began has emerged from the R&d program. This additional $10 billion will push the Ecoimagination investment total to $25 billion by 2020, according to#GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt.#
#This latest $10 billion investment will be used to advance research in three areas: natural, renewable energy and power plants.
On the natural gas front an area that many environmentalists would argue is not a green energy source GE will work on developing alternative technologies to replace water in the hydraulic fracturing process.#
#Hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, is a technique drillers use to reach vast tracts of previously untouchable gas trapped in shale.
Environmental concerns posed by fracking like the release of methane and groundwater contamination have escalated with the advent of the natural gas boom in the U s. The huge amount of water used in fracking has become a particularly touchy subject in drought-ridden areas where some 55 percent of the wells fracked
since 2011 are located, according to study released in February by Ceres. The study found 97 billion gallons of water were used to frack more than 39,
000 oil and shale gas wells between January 2011 and May 2013.##GE said it will work with Statoil to evaluate
whether CO2 can be used economically as an alternative to water. It's possible to use CO2 to fracture shale rock formations,
but it's expensive, particularly in large-scale operations. The two companies plan to look into whether a system can be designed to capture CO2 produced from emissions,
reuse the CO2 to fracture rock formations and then capture it again to use on the next well.#
GE's trailer-mounted gas turbine delivers on-site power using field gas at a well site in Alberta s
and what still needs to be done Can the social networking wave that is emerging help bring about more responsive government organizations?
Social networking provides governments with a new paradigm: knowledge release rather than knowledge control. This Government 2. 0 approach can harness government knowledge to improve results.#(PDF white paper available from Freebalance.
Government 2. 0 enabled through social networking tools provides benefits such as reduced cost of engagement through more productive tools and processes, simplified knowledge creation and retention though usable applications, easier knowledge sharing,
and enhanced information discovery through transparency and data mashups. It all sounds like good mom-and-apple-pie stuff,
but is it actually being put to use? The Grant Thornton report says yes, and cites some examples:
Citizens Health care Working group (CHCWG:##Under the direction of Health and human services, CHCWG commissioned by Congress to enlist citizens to provide input to review health care system.
Grant Thorton reports that a collaborative solution was up and running in less than one month.##
and was managed by a single Dod employee. South Florida Water management District (SFWMD:##Online collaboration enabled agencies from multiple jurisdictions to work together
The task force turned to crowdsourcing to develop a design for the memorial to the passengers and crew of Flight 93.
To help government better take advantage of social networking technologies, Grant Thornton suggests that government organizations better incorporate design thinking#(Government 2. 0 mindset) as a supplement to management thinking#(Government 1. 0 mindset).
#Change Management in the Web 2. 0 era is more peer-to-peer, viral#change is pulled by participating constituents, employees, customers.#
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