“The Stars and Stripes Forever” John Phillip Sousa 1896

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Cafes at Saint George

July 17, 2025
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University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation Report | $8.2B

Jordan Peterson was a Professor at the University of Toronto St. George


Fire Safety

July 17, 2025
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“Creation of humanity by Prometheus as Athena looks on”

Fire safety leadership usually finds itself involved in nearly every dimension of risk on the #WiseCampus; not just the built environment but security of interior spaces with combustibles but along the perimeter and within the footprint of the education community overall.

The Campus Fire Marshal, for example, usually signs the certificate of occupancy for a new building but may be drawn into meetings where decisions about cybersecurity are made.   Fire protection systems coincide with evacuation systems when there is no risk and both may be at risk because of cyber-risk.

The job description of a campus fire safety official is linked below offers some insight into why fire safety technologies reach into every risk dimension:

University of California Santa Cruz Office of Emergency Services

University of Tennessee Emergency Service Training

The development of the highest level fire safety consensus product in the world is led by the British Standards Institute, under the administration of the International Standardization Organization, with Committee E05 on Fire Standards of  ASTM International as the US Technical Advisory Group Administrator.  The business plan and the map of global participants is linked below:

BUSINESS PLAN ISO/TC 92 Fire safety EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The consensus products developed by TC 92 are intended to save lives, reduce fire losses, reduce technical barriers to trade, provide for international harmonization of tests and methods and bring substantial cost savings in design. ISO/TC 92 standards are expected to be of special value to developing countries, which are less likely to have national standards.  As with all ISO standards, the TC 92 consensus product is a performance standard suitable for use in prescriptive regulations and provide for a proven route to increased fire safety.

We do not advocate in this standard at the moment; we only track it.  The International Fire Code and the Fire Code have been our priorities since 2006.  The fire safety space is well populated with knowledgeable facility professionals because conformity budgets in the fire safety world — i.e. the local or state fire marshal — usually has a budget.  When you have a budget you usually have people keeping pace with best practice.

We encourage our colleagues in the United States on either the business or academic side of the education facility industry to communicate directly with ANSI’s ISO Team and/or the ASTM Contact: Tom O’Toole, 100 Barr Harbor Drive, West Conshohocken, PA 19428-2959 Phone: (610) 832-9739, Email: totoole@astm.org

We maintain this title on the agenda of our periodic Global and Prometheus colloquia.  See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting;  open to everyone.

Issue: [19-104]

Category: Fire Safety, Fire Protection, International

Contact: Mike Anthony, Joe DeRosier, Alan Sactor, Joshua Elvove, Casey Grant

More:

The Challenges of Storage and Not Enough Space, Alan Sactor

International Fire Code

July 17, 2025
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Crosswalk: NFPA Fire Code and ICC International Fire Code

2024 GROUP A PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE I-CODES based on Committee Action Hearings October 2024

2024 GROUP A PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE I-CODES

2024/2025/2026 ICC CODE DEVELOPMENT SCHEDULE

ICC BCAC | Comments to be presented at October Hearings

Noteworthy Proposals:

IFC 1010.27 Locking arrangements, PDF page 252

IFC 1020.2 Corridor Fire Resistance Ratings. PDF page 356

IFC 915 More Carbon Monoxide Detection Systems, PDF page 1156

IBC 917 Mass notification for Group E occupancies, PDF page 1176

IFC 5701 More Process Hazard Analysis, PDF page 1571

The transcript (Complete Monograph) of Committee Actions should be available by September 5th.

Committee Action Hearings on Proposed Changes: October 23-31 Long Beach, California

“A Square with Imaginary Buildings” | Hendrik van Steenwijck (1614)

LIVE: I-Code Group B Public Comment Hearings

Higher Education Laboratories

“Waking Effectiveness of Alarms for Adults Who Are Hard of Hearing” 2007  Victoria University, Australia

Health Facilities: Navigating IBC and NFPA differences


Posted February 14, 2023

Free access to the latest edition of the IFC is linked below:

2021 International Fire Code

Following the ICC Group A revision cycle public consultation on the 2024 International Fire Code will begin.  The ICC will announce the development schedule sometime in 2022.

We limit our resources simply tracking the proposals that run through Group E (Educational) and Group I (Institutional) occupancies in the Group A suite with closer attention to the state they are adopted whole cloth or with local exceptions.  In many cases, IFC adoption by state and local authorities is delayed by one or more previous code revisions.  This delay in adoption may be necessary in order for jurisdictions to evaluate the impact of changes upon the region under their authority.

Public safety budgets historically support the local and state fire marshal and his or her staff.   The revenue stream of many trade associations originates from membership, conference attendance, training and certification enterprises that service the public sector stakeholder.   Manufacturer sponsorship of trade association conferences is noteworthy.

Unless there is an idea, or proposed regulation that has run off the rails (either in terms of rigor or cost increase) — we place fire safety in the middle of our ranking of priorities.  With gathering pace, we find many fires safety goals being met with electrotechnologies where we place our highest priority.

Click on image for more information. The map is updated by expert agencies frequently so we recommend a web search for an update.

Significant code changes rarely happen within a 3-year cycle so it is wise to follow ideas as they travel through the agendas of technical committees through several cycles as administered by the Fire Code Action Committee.

The ICC posts the transcripts of public proposals, technical committee responses to public proposals, public response to the technical committee response and the final balloting in a fair and reasonable fashion as can be seen in the transcripts linked below:

2021 International Fire Code Proposed Changes

2021 International Fire Code Public Comment Agenda 

A search on the terms “classroom” or “school” in any of the documents above offers granular insight into the trend of current thinking.   We find fire extinguishers placement a perennial concern across several standards suites.   You will note the careful consideration of proposals for use of the mass notification systems, now integrated into fire alarm systems and their deployment in active shooter situations.

The transcripts reveal detailed understanding and subtlety.

“The Country School” | Winslow Homer

There are many issues affecting the safety and sustainability of the education facility industry.  We add value to the industry because of our cross-cutting perspective on the hundreds of “silos”created by the competition (and sometimes cooperation) among accredited, consortia and open-source standards developers.  We have the door open every day at 11 AM Eastern time to enlighten understanding of them all.  We also host a breakout teleconference every month to drill into the specifics of standards action on fire safety for the real assets of school districts, colleges and universities.  See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting.

Finally, we persist in encouraging education industry facility managers (especially those with operations and maintenance data) to participate in the ICC code development process.  You may do so by CLICKING HERE.

The ICC Group B Code Meetings will be hosted soon and open to the public:   

International Code Council 2022 Group B Public Comment Agenda (September 14-21 Kentucky International Convention Center)

The Group B tranche is largely focused on energy, structural, residential and existing building concepts but all of the titles cross-reference the IFC in some way so it is wise to follow how the concepts re-arrange and cross-reference themselves with each cycle.

 

Issue: [16-169]

Category: Architectural, Facility Asset Management, Space Planning

Colleagues: Mike Anthony,  Casey Grant, Joshua Evolve, Marcelo Hirschler


More

2021/2022 ICC CODE DEVELOPMENT SCHEDULE

FINAL ACTION RESULTS ON THE 2018 PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE INTERNATIONAL CODES – GROUP A

2018 GROUP A PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE I-CODES COLUMBUS COMMITTEE ACTION HEARINGS

2018 GROUP A PUBLIC COMMENT AGENDA | INTERNATIONAL BUILDING CODE

2018 GROUP A PUBLIC COMMENT AGENDA | INTERNATIONAL FIRE CODE

2018 REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ACTION HEARINGS ON THE 2018 EDITIONS OF THE GROUP A INTERNATIONAL CODES

 

 

https://wvstateu.edu/news/wvsu-watermelon-research-published-in-the-plant-jo/

Quadrivium: Summer

July 17, 2025
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Trending | Engagements, Weddings & Births | Sport News | Carillons

University of Michigan Business School | Mike Anthony with colleagues; some since 1982

Dark Academia Things To Do

MORE

 

“What we learn with pleasure we never forget.”

Horace (Ars Poetica)

Summer Week 29 | July 14 – July 20

Retrodiction

“Demeter Thesmophoros” Jean-Léon Gérôme

“…O chestnut tree;, great rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bold?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?”

Among Schoolchildren, 1933 William Butler Yeats

We sweep through the world’s three major time zones; updating our understanding of the literature at the technical foundation of education community safety and sustainability in those time zones 24 times per day. We generally eschew “over-coding” web pages to sustain speed, revision cadence and richness of content as peak priority.  We do not provide a search facility because of copyrights of publishers and time sensitivity of almost everything we do.

Readings:

“The Advancement of Learning” Francis Bacon (1605)

“The Allegory of the Cave” 380 BCE | Plato’s Republic, Book VII

Thucydides: Pericles’ Funeral Oration

IEEE Access: Advanced Deep Learning Models for 6G: Overview, Opportunities, and Challenges | Xidian University

“Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination” (2002) Peter Ackroyd

“Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” Satoshi Nakamoto

“Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” (1841) | Charles Mackay

Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Study of Mind

“Kant’s Categorical Imperative” | Hillsdale College Introduction to Western Philosophy

“The Natural History of Stupidity” (1959) Paul Tabori

“The College Idea: Andrew Delbanco” Lapham’s Quarterly

Distributed Representations of Words and Phrases and their Compositionality | Google, Inc. et, al

Our daily colloquia are typically doing sessions; with non-USA titles receiving priority until 16:00 UTC and all other titles thereafter.  We assume policy objectives are established (Safer-Simpler-Lower-Cost, Longer-Lasting).   Because we necessarily get into the weeds, and because much of the content is time-sensitive and copyright protected, we usually schedule a separate time slot to hammer on technical specifics so that our response to consultations are meaningful and contribute to the goals of the standards developing organization and to the goals of stewards of education community real assets — typically the largest real asset owned by any US state and about 50 percent of its annual budget.

1. Leviathan.  We track noteworthy legislative proposals in the United States 118th Congress.  Not many deal specifically with education community real assets since the relevant legislation is already under administrative control of various Executive Branch Departments such as the Department of Education.

We do not advocate in legislative activity at any level.   We respond to public consultations but there it ends.

We track federal legislative action because it provides a stroboscopic view of the moment — the “national conversation”– in communities that are simultaneously a business and a culture.  Even though more than 90 percent of such proposals are at the mercy of the party leadership the process does enlighten the strengths and weakness of a governance system run entirely through the counties on the periphery of Washington D.C.  It is impossible to solve technical problems in facilities without sensitivity to the zietgeist that has accelerated in education communities everywhere.

Michigan can 100% water and feed itself.  Agriculture is its second-largest industry.

2National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

3. American National Standards Institute (ANSI)

4. Fast Forward  

The Year Ahead 2025

5. Rewind

Retrodiction

Lights Out

6. Corrigenda

 

“The world will never starve for want of wonders;

but only for want of wonder.”

–  G.K Chesterton, The Spirit of Christmas (1905)

Fire Alarm & Signaling Code

July 17, 2025
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“Prometheus Bound” | Thomas Cole (1847)

NFPA 72 National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code is one of the core National Fire Protection Association titles widely incorporated by reference into public safety legislation.   NFPA 72 competes with titles of “similar” scope — International Fire Code — developed by the International Code Council.  We place air quotes around the word similar because there are gaps and overlaps depending upon whether or not each is adopted partially or whole cloth by the tens of thousands of jurisdictions that need both.

Our contact with NFPA 72 dates back to the early 2000’s when the original University of Michigan advocacy enterprise began challenging the prescriptive requirements for inspection, testing and maintenance (IT&M) in Chapter 14.  There are hundreds of fire alarm shops, and thousands of licensed fire alarm technicians in the education facility industry and the managers of this cadre of experts needed leadership in supporting their lower #TotalCostofOwnership agenda with “code-writing and vote-getting”.   There was no education industry trade association that was even interested, much less effective, in this space so we had to do “code writing and vote getting” ourselves (See ABOUT).

Code writing and vote getting means that you gather data, develop relationships with like minded user-interests, find agreement where you can, then write proposals and defend them at NFPA 72 technical committee meetings for 3 to 6 years.  Prevailing in the Sturm und Drang of code development for 3 to 6 years should be within the means of business units of colleges and universities that have been in existence for 100’s of years.  The real assets under the stewardship of these business units are among the most valuable real assets on earth.

Consider the standard of care for inspection, testing and maintenance.  Our cross-cutting experience in over 100 standards suites allows us to say with some authority that, at best the IT&M tables of NFPA 72 Chapter 14 present easily enforceable criteria for IT&M of fire alarm and signaling systems.  At worst, Chapter 14 is a solid example of market-making by incumbent interests as the US standards system allows.   Many of the IT&M requirements can be modified for a reliability, or risk-informed centered maintenance program but fire and security shops in the education industry are afraid to apply performance standards because of risk exposure.   This condition is made more difficult in large universities that have their own maintenance and enforcement staff.  The technicians see opportunities to reduce IT&M frequencies — thereby saving costs for the academic unit facility managers — the enforcement/compliance/conformity/risk management professionals prohibit the application of performance standards.  They want prescriptive standards for bright line criteria to make their work easier to measure.

While we have historically focused on Chapter 14 we have since expanded our interest into communication technologies within buildings since technicians and public safety personnel depend upon them.  Content in Annex G — Guidelines for Emergency Communication Strategies for Buildings and Campuses — is a solid starting point and reflects of our presence when the guidance first appeared in the 2016 Edition.  We shall start with a review of the most recent transcript of the NFPA Technical Committee on Testing and Maintenance of Fire Alarm and Signaling Systems

NFPA 72 First Draft Meeting (A2024)

Public Emergency Reporting Systems (SIG-PRS) First Draft

Public comment of the First Draft of the 2025 Edition is receivable until May 31, 2023.   As always, we encourage direct participation in the NFPA process by workpoint experts with experience, data and even strong opinions about shortcomings and waste in this discipline.  You may key in your proposals on the NFPA public input facility linked below:

https://www.nfpa.org/login

You will need to set up a (free) NFPA TerraView account.   Alternatively, you may join us any day at 11 AM US Eastern time or during our Prometheus or Radio colloquia.   See our CALENDAR for the online meeting.

Issue: [15-213]

Category: Fire Safety & Security, #SmartCampus, Informatics

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Joe DeRosier, Josh Elvove, Jim Harvey, Marcelo Hirschler


More

2013 NFPA 72 National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code (357 pages)

TIA-222 Standard For Towers And Antenna Supporting Structures

 

Emergency Communication Strategies for Buildings

 

ARCHIVE / NFPA 72

National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security

 

Healthcare Organization Management

July 17, 2025
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Open consultations:

VF_40_2025_-_Re-allocation_of_ISO_TC_304_ Comments due July 17th

ISO_DIS 20364 Pandemic Response Standard Draft Open for Public Consultation Comments due July 1

ISO Healthcare Management Comments on Smart Hospital Standard due January 15

 Send Mike a message to coordinate comments

“Une leçon clinique à la Salpêtrière” 1887 André Brouillet

Many large research universities have significant medical research and healthcare delivery enterprises. The leadership of those enterprises discount the effect of standards like this at their peril. It is easy to visualize that this document will have as transformative effect upon the healthcare industry as the ISO 9000 series of management standards in the globalization of manufacturing.

Scope

Standardization in the field of healthcare organization management comprising, terminology, nomenclature, recommendations and requirements for healthcare-specific management practices and metrics (e.g. patient-centered staffing, quality, facility-level infection control, pandemic management, hand hygiene) that comprise the non-clinical operations in healthcare entities.

Excluded are horizontal organizational standards within the scope of:

    • quality management and quality assurance (TC 176);
    • human resource management (TC 260);
    • risk management (TC 262);
    • facility management (TC 267), and;
    • occupational health and safety management (TC 283).

Also excluded are standards relating to clinical equipment and practices, enclosing those within the scope of TC 198 Sterilization of health care products.

This committee is led by the US Technical Advisory Group Administrator —Ingenesis.   The committee is very active at the moment, with new titles drafted, reviewed and published on a near-monthly basis,

 

DPAS ballot for ISO PAS 23617- Healthcare organization management: Pandemic response  (respiratory) —Guidelines for medical support of socially vulnerable groups – Comments due 16 October

ISO-TC 304 Healthcare Organization Management- Pandemic response – Contact tracing – Comments due August 3, 2023

[Issue 14-99]

Contact:  Lee Webster (lswebste@utmb.edu, lwebster@ingenesis.com), Mike Anthony (mike@standardsmichigan.com), Jack Janveja (jjanveja@umich.edu), Richard Robben (rrobben1952@gmail.com), James Harvey (jharvey@umich.edu), Christine Fischer (chrisfis@umich.edu), Dr Veronica Muzquiz Edwards (vedwards@ingenesis.com)

Category: Health, Global

Workspace / ISO 304 Healthcare Administration

More

Journal of Healthcare Management Standards: Operational Resilience of Hospital Power Systems in the Digital Age

ISO Focus Special Issue on Healthcare

ISO/TC 48 Laboratory equipment

ISO/TC 212 Clinical laboratory testing and in vitro diagnostic test systems

ISO/TC 198 Sterilization of health care products

How do standards contribute to better healthcare?

  • The American National Standards Institute — the Global Secretariat for ISO — does not provide content management systems for its US Technical Advisory Groups.  Because of the nascent committee, inspired by the work of Lee Webster at the University of Texas Medical Branch needed a content management system, we have been managing content on a Google Site facility on a University of Michigan host since 2014.Earlier this spring, the University of Michigan began upgrading its Google Sites facility which requires us to offload existing content onto the new facility before the end of June.  That process is happening now.  Because of this it is unwise for us to open the content library for this committee publicly.  Respecting copyright, confidentiality of ISO and the US Technical Advisory Group we protect most recent content in the link below and invite anyone to click in any day at 15:00 (16:00) UTC.  Our office door is open every day at this hour and has been for the better part of ten years.

Current Issues and Recent Research

July 17, 2025
mike@standardsmichigan.com

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“If you want to find the secrets of the universe,

think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.”

—  Nikola Tesla

​​

IEEE Southeastern Michigan Section Welcome August 2024

 

 

IEEE & SWE Student Tour of Michigan Stadium Scoreboard | April 2024

IEEE SEM Student Activity

Trending

 IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee July 8  Ω Electrical Power System Research

NFPA Electrical Standards Landing Page  Ω NFPA Standards Council  Ω NFPA Fire Safety Landing Page

NEW: ASHRAE Landing Page

Draft IEEE Paper AbstractsMike Anthony Short Biography | Electrical Industrial Conglomerates

“Tomorrow’s Girls” | Donald Fagan

Policy:

Department of Energy Portfolio Analysis & Management System

Department of Energy Building Technologies Office

FERC Open Meetings | (Note that these ~60 minute sessions meet Sunshine Act requirements.  Our interest lies one or two levels deeper into the technicals underlying the administrivia)

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Federal Communication Commission Michigan Public Service Commission
June 16 Open Meeting January 22: Newly Appointed FCC Chairman Announces Staff Changes June  12 Open Meeting
May 15 Open Meeting May 15 Open Meeting
April 17 Open Meeting April 24 Open Meeting
March 20 Open Meeting
February 20 FERC Open Meeting March 3 Open Meeting
January 16 FERC Press Conference February 27, 2025 Open Meeting

January 23: NARUC Congratulates New FERC, FCC and NRC Chairs

January 22: Newly Appointed FCC Chairman Announces Staff Changes | Related: Falsus in uno, Falsus in omnibus

January 6: City of Ann Arbor Postpones Phase II Study to Municipalize DTE Energy distribution grid

January 27, 10 AM Low-Income Energy Policy Board Meeting: Michigan Public Service commission

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: January 16, 2025 Open Meeting

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Notice of Request for Comments (Posted November 25, 2024)

Interregional Transfer Capability Study: Strengthening Reliability Through the Energy Transformation Docket No. AD25-4-000

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission | November 21, Open Meeting

Press Conference

Michigan Public Service Commission Meetings

Michigan Public Commission Meeting  February 27, 2025

MPSC DTE CMS Electric Power Reliability Case No. U-21305

Michigan Electrical Administrative Board Meeting February 13, 2025

FCC Open Meeting | November 21 

[Mike Anthony Opinion] on the gales of innuendo against limited federal government voices in federally financed National Public Radio

National Infrastructure Advisory Council: Addressing the Critical Shortage of Power Transformers to Ensure Reliability of the U.S. Grid

H.R. 9603 (September 16): To amend the Federal Power Act to prohibit the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from issuing permits for the construction or modification of electric transmission facilities in a State over the objection of the State, and for other purposes.

Technical: (Also Electrical Power System Research)

Empower Pre-Trained Large Language Models for Building-Level Load Forecasting

Uptime Institute (via NEXT DC) : AI Inference in the Data Center

Majorana Nanowires for Topological Quantum Computing

Linearized Data Center Workload and Cooling Management

Lex Fridman: DeepSeek, China, OpenAI, NVIDIA, xAI, TSMC, Stargate, and AI Megaclusters 

IEEE: Experts Weigh in on $500B Stargate Project for AI

IEEE: AI Mistakes Are Very Different Than Human Mistakes .  We need new security systems designed to deal with their weirdness

High-Performance Tensor Learning Primitives Using GPU Tensor Cores

Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, New York

Causes and Consequences of Widespread Power Blackout Across Taiwan on 3 March 2022: A Blackout Incident Investigation in the Taiwan Power System

Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei City, Taiwan

 

First Draft Proposals contain most of our proposals — and most new (original) content.  We will keep the transcripts linked below but will migrate them to a new page starting 2025:

Electrical Safety

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-1

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-2

Public Input Report CMP-3

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-4

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-5

Public Input Report CMP-6

Public Input Report CMP-7

Public Input Report CMP-8

Public Input Report CMP-9

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-10

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-11

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-12

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-13

Public Input Report CMP-14

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-15

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-16

Public Input Report CMP-17

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-18

Related:

2026 National Electrical Code

N.B. We are in the process of migrating electric power system research to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers bibliographic format. 


Recap of the May meetings of the  Industrial & Commercial Power Systems Conference in Las Vegas.  The conference ended the day before the beginning of the 3-day Memorial Day weekend in the United States so we’re pressed for time; given all that happened.

We can use our last meeting’s agenda to refresh the status of the issues.

IEEE E&H Draft Agenda 28 May 2024

On site conference agenda:

IEEE E&H Conference Agenda 21 May 2024

NESC & NEC Cross-Code Correlation

We typically break down our discussion into the topics listed below:

Codes & Standards:

While IAS/I&CPS has directed votes on the NEC; Mike is the only I&CPS member who is actually submitting proposals and responses to codes and standards developers to the more dominant SDO’s — International Code Council, ASHRAE International, UL, ASTM International, IEC & ISO.  Mike maintains his offer to train the next generation of “code writers and vote getters”

Performance-based building premises feeder design has been proposed for the better part of ten NEC revision cycles.  The objective of these proposals is to reduce material, labor and energy waste owed to the branch and feeder sizing rules that are prescriptive in Articles 210-235.  Our work in service and lighting branch circuit design has been largely successful.  A great deal of building interior power chain involves feeders — the network upstream from branch circuit panels but down stream from building service panel.

Our history of advocating for developing this approach, inspired by the NFPA 101 Guide to Alternative Approaches to Life Safety, and recounted in recent proposals for installing performance-based electrical feeder design into the International Building Code, appears in the link below:

Access to this draft paper for presentation at any conference that will receive it — NFPA, ICC or IEEE (or even ASHRAE) will be available for review at the link below:

Toward Performance-Based Building Premise Feeder Design

 

NFPA 110 Definitions of Public Utility v. Merchant Utility

NFPA 72 “Definition of Dormitory Suite” and related proposals

Buildings:

Renovation economics, Smart contracts in electrical construction.  UMich leadership in aluminum wiring statements in the NEC should be used to reduce wiring costs.

Copper can’t be mined fast enough to electrify the United States

Daleep asked Mike to do a Case Study session on the NEC lighting power density change (NEC 220-14) for the IAS Annual Meeting in October.  Mike agreed.

Exterior Campus & Distribution:

Illumination.  Gary Fox reported that IEEE 3001.9 was endorsed as an ANSI accredited standard for illumination systems.

2024-ICPSD24-0012 PERMANENT DESIGN OF POWER SYSTEMS Parise

This paper details primary considerations in estimating the life cycle of a campus medium voltage distribution grid.   Some colleges and universities are selling their entire power grid to private companies.  Mike has been following these transactions but cannot do it alone.

Variable Architecture Multi-Island Microgrids

District energy:

Generator stator winding failures and implications upon insurance premiums.  David Shipp and Sergio Panetta.  Mike suggests more coverage of retro-fit and lapsed life cycle technicals for insurance companies setting premiums.

Reliability:

Bob Arno’s leadership in updating the Gold Book.

Mike will expand the sample set in Table 10-35, page 293 from the <75 data points in the 1975 survey to >1000 data points.   Bob will set up meeting with Peyton at US Army Corps of Engineers.

Reliability of merchant utility distribution systems remains pretty much a local matter.  The 2023 Edition of the NESC shows modest improvement in the vocabulary of reliability concepts.  For the 2028 Edition Mike submitted several proposals to at least reference IEEE titles in the distribution reliability domain.   It seems odd (at least to Mike) that the NESC committees do not even reference IEEE technical literature such as Bob’s Gold Book which has been active for decades.  Mike will continue to propose changes in other standards catalogs — such as ASTM, ASHRAE and ICC — which may be more responsive to best practice assertions.  Ultimately, improvements will require state public utility commission regulations — and we support increases in tariffs so that utilities can afford these improvements.

Mike needs help from IEEE Piscataway on standard WordPress theme limitations for the data collection platform.

Mike will update the campus power outage database.

Healthcare:

Giuseppe Parise’s recent work in Italian power grid to its hospitals, given its elevated earthquake risk.  Mike’s review of Giuseppe’s paper:

Harvard Business School: Journal of Healthcare Management Standards

Mike and David Shipp will prepare a position paper for the Harvard Healthcare Management Journal on reliability advantages of impedance grounding for the larger systems.

The Internet of Bodies

Forensics:

Giuseppe’s session was noteworthy for illuminating the similarity and differences between the Italian and US legal system in handling electrotechnology issues.

Mike will restock the committee’s library of lawsuits transactions.

Ports:

Giuseppe updates on the energy and security issues of international ports.  Mike limits his time in this committee even though the State of Michigan has the most fresh water international ports in the world.

A PROPOSED GUIDE FOR THE ENERGY PLAN AND ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE OF A PORT

Other:

Proposals to the 2028 National Electrical Safety Code: Accepted Best Practice, exterior switchgear guarding, scope expansion into ICC and ASHRAE catalog,

Apparently both the Dot Standards and the Color Books will continue parallel development.  Only the Gold Book is being updated; led by Bob Arno.  Mike admitted confusion but reminded everyone that any references to IEEE best practice literature in the NFPA catalog, was installed Mike himself (who would like some backup help)

Universities with Quantum Computing Facilities

Papers in Process:

Impedance Grounding Papers 1 and 2 with David Shipp.  Previous Discussion:

https://ieeetv.ieee.org/channels/ieee-region-events/uc-berkeley-s-medium-voltage-grounding-system

Over Coffee and Beers:

Mike assured Christel Hunter (General Cable) that his proposals for reducing the 180 VA per-outlet requirements, and the performance-base design allowance for building interior feeders do not violate the results of the Neher-McGrath calculation used for conductor sizing.  All insulation and conducting material thermal limits are unaffected.

Other informal discussions centered on the rising cost of copper wiring and the implications for the global electrotechnical transformation involving the build out of quantum computing and autonomous vehicles.  Few expressed optimism that government ambitions for the same could be met in any practical way.

Are students avoiding use of Chat GPT for energy conservation reasons?  Mike will be breaking out this topic for a dedicated standards inquiry session:

GPT Power Grid

Education & Healthcare Facility Electrotechnology Committee

Workspace IEEE 1366: Guide for Electric Power Distribution Reliability Indices

Largest U.S. Electric Utility Companies Ranked by Generation Capacity  For IEEE 493 update we seek outage data from the 100 largest campus power system experts.

Reliability Analysis for Power to Fire Pumps

July 17, 2025
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Reliability Analysis for Power to Fire Pump Using Fault Tree and RBD

Robert Schuerger | HP Critical Facilities (Project Lead, Corresponding Author) 

Robert Arno | ITT Excelis Information Systems

Neal Dowling | MTechnology

Michael  A. Anthony | University of Michigan

 

Abstract:  One of the most common questions in the early stages of designing a new facility is whether the normal utility supply to a fire pump is reliable enough to “tap ahead of the main” or whether the fire pump supply is so unreliable that it must have an emergency power source, typically an on-site generator. Apart from the obligation to meet life safety objectives, it is not uncommon that capital on the order of 100000to1 million is at stake for a fire pump backup source. Until now, that decision has only been answered with intuition – using a combination of utility outage history and anecdotes about what has worked before. There are processes for making the decision about whether a facility needs a second source of power using quantitative analysis. Fault tree analysis and reliability block diagram are two quantitative methods used in reliability engineering for assessing risk. This paper will use a simple one line for the power to a fire pump to show how each of these techniques can be used to calculate the reliability of electric power to a fire pump. This paper will also discuss the strengths and weakness of the two methods. The hope is that these methods will begin tracking in the National Fire Protection Association documents that deal with fire pump power sources and can be used as another tool to inform design engineers and authorities having jurisdiction about public safety and property protection. These methods will enlighten decisions about the relative cost of risk control with quantitative information about the incremental cost of additional 9’s of operational availability.

 

 

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British High Schoolers Try American Fried Chicken, Biscuits & Sausage Gravy

July 16, 2025
mike@standardsmichigan.com
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Biscuits and sausage gravy is firmly rooted in Southern American cuisine, which has a rich history influenced by African, Native American, European, and other culinary traditions. The combination of biscuits and sausage gravy reflects the availability of ingredients in the South, where biscuits (similar to a type of British scone) and pork products were common.

The concept of biscuits, similar to what Americans call biscuits, has British origins. Early settlers brought this baking technique with them to the American colonies. However, the American biscuit evolved over time to become lighter and fluffier compared to the denser British biscuit.

Kitchens 300

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