“…I found myself in the midst of a civilization that had advanced beyond all the great dreams of my forebears. I had thought my home would be a simple place for pastoral people, people who made their living from agriculture. But it was already a complex place, an iron and steel and railway and grain-exchange city, the gates to the prairie…”
Different Trends in Worldwide Natural Gas Distribution Market Outlook: Ken Research
Historically, “Town Gas” referred to a manufactured gaseous fuel, primarily produced from coal, that was supplied to homes and businesses in towns and cities for heating and lighting purposes. We use it as a general term for a manufactured gas distributed through educational settlements because of its cleaner and safer properties. Among them:
Heating and Cooling – Most settlements use natural gas to power boilers and furnaces for heating buildings during cold months. It also fuels absorption chillers for air conditioning in warmer seasons.
Electricity Generation – Settlements with cogeneration (combined heat and power) plants use natural gas to produce electricity while capturing waste heat for heating, improving energy efficiency.
Cooking Facilities – Dining halls rely on natural gas for precise and reliable cooking, making meal preparation efficient.
Laboratories and Research – Science and engineering labs use natural gas for Bunsen burners, sterilization, and other experimental applications requiring controlled flames.
Hot Water Supply – Dormitories, gyms, and other campus facilities use natural gas water heaters to provide a continuous supply of hot water for showers, washing, and sanitation.
Transportation – Some universities operate shuttle buses and service vehicles on compressed natural gas (CNG), reducing emissions and fuel costs.
Emergency Backup Power – Natural gas generators provide backup power during outages, ensuring critical systems, like research labs and data centers, remain operational.
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• In ancient times, kitchens were often located outside the main living quarters of a home. They were typically small, with an open hearth for cooking and a few basic utensils.
• During the Middle Ages, kitchens began to be built inside castles and manor houses. These kitchens were much larger and more complex than earlier versions, with multiple hearths, ovens, and cooking utensils.
• During the Renaissance, kitchens continued to become more elaborate, with the development of specialized cooking tools and the introduction of new cooking techniques. The kitchen also became a central gathering place for the household.
• With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, kitchens began to incorporate new technologies, such as gas stoves and refrigeration. As more people moved into cities, smaller kitchens became the norm.
• In the 20th century, the design and functionality of kitchens continued to evolve. The introduction of electricity and new materials, such as stainless steel, allowed for more efficient and hygienic kitchens. Open-plan kitchens, where the kitchen is integrated with the living and dining areas, also became popular.
The internationalization of the education industry continues at a brisk pace and so do the enterprises that support the primary business of learning, teaching and discovering. Educational campuses, and related university-affiliated medical research and healthcare enterprises, represent one of the largest assets owned and operated by any state.
In a state such as the State of Michigan, for example, with a gross state product of about $500 billion, the value of public real property assets may be on the order of $50 billion*. If taking 2 percent off the cost owning, operating and maintaining those assets every year resulted in a savings of $1 billion million every year simply because conformance to a standard that reduced destructive competition and redundancy is meaningful, then those agencies should pay attention. Alas, they do not, or not yet; a condition we describe in our ABOUT.
There is no reason to believe that internationalization of campus facility management practices cannot be as transformative to an industry as the ISO 9000 catalog of management standards were to, say, to the Michigan automobile industry 50-odd years ago. In other words, the Michigan experience with globalization of its core industry was hastened precisely because of the conformance template that the ISO-9000 suite provided.
ISO/TC 267 Project Kickoff Meeting | Berlin 2012 | The University of Michigan was the first US university to participate in the launch of this standard and acted as a technical liaison for IFMA.
The business plan for this committee is linked below and provides a high level overview of committee goals and organization:
At the moment ANSI has identified the US TAG Administrator as the International Facility Management Association however direct management of the US delegation is also being supported by ANSI staff. You are encouraged to communicate directly with ANSI’s US Technical Advisory Group leader to TC 267. Contacts at ANSI are Jason Knopes <JKnopes@ansi.org> and Rachel Hawthorne <rhawthorne@ansi.org>.
We place ISO/TC 267 consensus products on each of our monthly Management, and International Standards. See our CALENDAR for next online meetings, open to everyone.
Issue: [11-33]
Category: Facility Asset Management, International
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Christine Fischer, Jack Janveja, Richard Robben
Education communities provide a locus for lively art production, enjoyment and instruction. It is both a consumer and producer; with the expansion of massive open online curricula drawing from the visual arts of cinematography.
The International Organization for Standardization administers leading practice discovery and promulgation of the standards in these enterprises through Technical Committee 36. From the ISO/TC 36 prospectus:
Standardization of definitions, dimensions, methods of measurement and test, and performance characteristics relating to materials and apparatus used in silent and sound motion picture photography; in sound recording and reproduction related thereto; in the installation and characteristics of projection and sound reproduction equipment; in laboratory work; and in standards relating to sound and picture films used in television.
The American National Standards Institute is the ISO TC/36 Secretariat and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) is the US Technical Advisory Group Administrator (US TAG). We find SCTE present in safety and sustainability standards settings forums in many facility types in the education industry. It provides expertise to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the National Fire Protection Association, and the International Code Council, among others.
As commenting opportunities that are relevant to the US education industry present themselves, we will identify them here. As data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates, the demand for skill in this discipline is accelerating; with the education industry itself as a large consumer. We encourage students, faculty and staff to communicate directly with Mr. Thomas Bause Mason at SCTE, 3 Barker Avenue, Fifth Floor, White Plains, ny 10601, Phone: (914) 761-1100, Email: tbausemason@smpte.org. Educational institutions in other nations should contact their national representative to ISO TC/36
We sweep through all international standards that affect the education industry every nation. The time and date of our next teleconference on international standards is shown on our CALENDAR.
Category: Academics, Arts & Entertainment Facilities, Electrical, Telecommunication
Contact: Mike Anthony, Sanne Clare Anthony, Jim Harvey, Richard Robben
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwBpic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
