Eurocodes

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Eurocodes

May 6, 2026
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Erasmus+ EU programme for education, training, youth and sport

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The Eurocodes are ten European standards (EN; harmonised technical rules) specifying how structural design should be conducted within the European Union. These were developed by the European Committee for Standardization upon the request of the European Commission.  The purpose of the Eurocodes is to provide:

  • A means to prove compliance with the requirements for mechanical strength and stability and safety in case of fire established by European Union law.[2]
  • A basis for construction and engineering contract specifications.
  • A framework for creating harmonized technical specifications for building products (CE mark).

Since March 2010 the Eurocodes are mandatory for the specification of European public works and are intended to become the de facto standard for the private sector. The Eurocodes therefore replace the existing national building codes published by national standard bodies, although many countries have had a period of co-existence. Additionally, each country is expected to issue a National Annex to the Eurocodes which will need referencing for a particular country (e.g. The UK National Annex). At present, take-up of Eurocodes is slow on private sector projects and existing national codes are still widely used by engineers.

Eurocodes appear routinely on the standing agendas of several of our daily colloquia, among them the AEDificare, Elevator & Lift and Hello World! colloquia.    See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.


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REGULATION (EU) No 305/2011 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL

Building Environment Design

Pecan Pie

May 5, 2026
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University of George Financial Report 2022 | $2.1B

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecan_pie

 

University of Georgia: Cranberry Pecan Pie

The popularity of Georgia pecan pie can be attributed to several factors:

  1. Abundance of Pecans: Georgia, particularly in the southern region of the United States, has a favorable climate for pecan trees. Pecans have been grown in Georgia for centuries, and the state has a long history of pecan cultivation. With such abundance, pecans became a staple ingredient in many traditional Southern recipes, including pecan pie.
  2. Southern Culinary Tradition: Southern cuisine, known for its comfort foods and indulgent desserts, heavily features pecans in various recipes. Pecan pie is a classic Southern dessert that has been passed down through generations, becoming deeply ingrained in the culinary heritage of the region. Georgia, as a quintessential Southern state, plays a significant role in promoting and preserving these culinary traditions.
  3. Cultural Significance: Pecan pie is not only a delicious dessert but also holds cultural significance in the South. It is often served during holidays and family gatherings, evoking feelings of warmth, nostalgia, and tradition. The act of sharing a slice of pecan pie with loved ones is a cherished tradition for many families in Georgia and throughout the South.

Standards Georgia

Student-run coffee shop

May 5, 2026
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Standards Ohio | Ohio 937

Artist: Bob Dylan (featuring Leonard Cohen)

There’s a new coffee shop in Cleveland, and it’s in John Marshall High School. The “Lawyers Café” serves lattes, healthy fruit smoothies, and Rising Star coffee, and it’s completely student-run. While they brew up the drinks as baristas and handle the budgets on the finance team, all of the scholars are getting hands-on job skills and learning what it takes to run their own small business.”

American Enterprise Institute: One Nation, Under Lawyers

“In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out, and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.”

— John Milton, Tractate of Education

President George H. Bush’s prescient warning to graduates about the destabilizing dangers of “political correctness” to the American experiment in a constitutional republic.  Escalated by the presidencies of Barack Obama and Joseph Biden; accelerated by multinational social media conglomerates, free speech — globally — remains challenged and threatens the return to the tribalism that doomed ancient civilizations.  Higher education in America will have the heaviest hand in this transformation.

“Ironically, on the 200th anniversary of our Bill of Rights, we find free speech under assault throughout the United States, including on some college campuses. The notion of political correctness has ignited controversy across the land. And although the movement arises from the laudable desire to sweep away the debris of racism and sexism and hatred, it replaces old prejudice with new ones. It declares certain topics off-limits, certain expression off-limits, even certain gestures off-limits.”

Engineering Research: Coffee Science

Coffee

Readings

Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman

Schumpter’s Theory of Creative Destruction

Electric Load Growth

May 5, 2026
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Standards North Carolina

The February 19, 2025 webinar hosted by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability explored how the U.S. power grid can accommodate rapid new electricity demand from data centers, AI, manufacturing, and EVs with minimal new generation and transmission infrastructure.  The study focused on the 22 largest U.S. balancing authorities (covering ~95% of national load) and emphasized load flexibility as a practical near-term solution.

Three Main Takeaways:

  • Load flexibility is a critical tool to support economic growth while maintaining grid reliability and affordability. Large customers can temporarily curtail or shift usage during periods of grid stress, reducing the need for costly infrastructure expansions.
  • Up to nearly 100 GW of new large loads could be added with minimal impact. Using “curtailment-enabled headroom,” the grid could accommodate approximately 100 GW of additional load if customers allow an average curtailment of just 0.5% of maximum uptime per year (roughly two hours during peak events). Sensitivity cases ranged from 76 GW (at 0.25% curtailment) to 126 GW (at 1%).
  • The required curtailment time is comparable to existing demand-response programs already operating successfully across the United States and would not be overly burdensome for large users such as data centers.

Additional Insights: The U.S. power system already has significant built-in headroom because it is designed for rare peak events. Leveraging modest flexibility from new loads can unlock this capacity quickly, enabling faster integration of high-growth loads while keeping costs lower for ratepayers.  Overall, the session advocated shifting from a traditional “build more supply” mindset toward greater use of demand-side flexibility to balance rapid load growth with reliability, affordability, and decarbonization goals.

Sports Equipment & Surfaces

May 5, 2026
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Student Membership | @ASTMStudentFans

“The National Game” 1889 Arthur Streeton

 

 

 

Sport is the bloom and glow of a perfect health.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Sport programs, facilities and equipment support one of the most visible and emotionally engaging enterprises in the education communities.   These programs are central to the brand identity of the community and last, but not least, physical activity keeps our young people healthy in body and mind.

ASTM International is one of the first names among the 300-odd ANSI accredited standards setting organizations whose due processes discover and promulgate the standard of care for the design, construction, operations and maintenance of the facilities that support these enterprises.   The parent committee is linked below:

ASTM Committee F08 on Sports Equipment, Playing Surfaces, and Facilities

While ASTM bibliography is largely product-oriented, there are many titles that set the standard of care for sport enterprises and the accessories to these enterprises.  To identify a few:

ASTM 1487-17 Standard Consumer Safety Performance Specification for Playground Equipment for Public Use

ASTM F1774  Standard Specification for Climbing and Mountaineering Carabiners

ASTM F2060-00(2011) Standard Guide for Maintaining Cool Season Turfgrasses on Athletic Fields

ASTM F1703-13 Standard Guide for Skating and Ice Hockey Playing Facilities

ASTM F1953-10 Standard Guide for Construction and Maintenance of Grass Tennis Courts

ASTM F1081-09(2015) Standard Specification for Competition Wrestling Mats

ASTM F2950-14 Standard Safety and Performance Specification for Soccer Goals

ASTM F2461-16e1 Standard Practice for Manufacture, Construction, Operation, and Maintenance of Aquatic Play Equipment

When the General Requirements of an athletic facility construction project indicates: “Conform to all applicable standards” then, in the case of an sport facility, the ASTM title is likely the document that defines the standard of care from a product standpoint.  Interoperability of the products in a sport setting are quite another matter.

At the international level, we track action in ISO/TC 83 Sports and other recreational facilities and equipment administered globally by the Deutsches Institut für Normung e.V.   ASTM International is ANSI’s Technical Advisory Group for  this committee.

University of Maine

The ASTM standards development process depends heavily on face-to-face meetings — typically two times per year – in different parts of the United States.   The benefit of this arrangement lies in the quality of discussion among subject matter experts that results produced from face-to-face discussion.  The price to pay for this quality, however, lies in the cost of attendance for the user-interest in the education industry.   Relatively few subject matter experts directly employed by a school district, college or university who are charged with lowering #TotalCostofOwnership can attend the meetings.   Many of the subject matter experts who are in attendance at the ASTM meetings from the education industry tend to be faculty who are retained by manufacturers, insurance, testing laboratories, conformity and compliance interests.  (See our discussion of Incumbent Interests)

That much said, ASTM welcomes subject matter experts on its technical committees (Click here)  We encourage participation by end users from the education industry — many of them in the middle of athletic facility management organization charts.   The parent committee meets twice a year; after which we usually find public review redlines developed during those meetings to hit our radar.  The link to the schedule of face-to-face meetings appears below:

F08 Meetings

Note that the August 2020 cancelled but the November 2020 meeting still appears on the schedule.  It is likely that much of the committee work will be done online.

We are required to review draft ASTM consensus products with some care — owing to copyright restrictions — so we do it interactively online during teleconferences devoted to Sport.  See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.

Issue: [7-7] [10-32] [13-165] [20-156] 

Category: Sport, Management, Risk Management

Contact: Mike Anthony, Jack Janveja, George Reiher, Richard Robben

Synthetic Turf Guidelines

 

Electricity and Water Conservation on College and University Campuses

May 5, 2026
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Electricity and Water Conservation on College and University Campuses…

John E. Petersen – Cynthia M. Frantz – Md. Rumi Shammin – Tess M. Yanisch – Evan Tincknell – Noel Myers

Oberlin College

Abstract. Campus Conservation Nationals” (CCN) is a recurring, nation-wide electricity and water-use reduction competition among dormitories on college campuses. We conducted a two year empirical study of the competition’s effects on resource consumption and the relationship between conservation, use of web technology and various psychological measures. Significant reductions in electricity and water use occurred during the two CCN competitions examined (n = 105,000 and 197,000 participating dorm residents respectively). In 2010, overall reductions during the competition were 4% for electricity and 6% for water. The top 10% of dorms achieved 28% and 36% reductions in electricity and water respectively. Participation was larger in 2012 and reductions were slightly smaller (i.e. 3% electricity). The fact that no seasonal pattern in electricity use was evident during non-competition periods suggests that results are attributable to the competition. Post competition resource use data collected in 2012 indicates that conservation behavior was sustained beyond the competition. Surveys were used to assess psychological and behavioral responses (n = 2,900 and 2,600 in 2010 and 2012 respectively). Electricity reductions were significantly correlated with: web visitation, specific conservation behaviors, awareness of the competition, motivation and sense of empowerment. However, participants were significantly more motivated than empowered. Perceived benefits of conservation were skewed towards global and future concerns while perceived barriers tended to be local. Results also suggest that competitions may be useful for “preaching beyond the choir”–engaging those who might lack prior intrinsic or political motivation. Although college life is distinct, certain conclusions related to competitions, self-efficacy, and motivation and social norms likely extend to other residential settings.

International Plumbing Code

International Mechanical Code Chapter 12: Hydronic Piping

 

Building Water Demand

Old-Fashioned Beef Stew

May 4, 2026
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Standards Wyoming

 

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
  • 1 pound beef stewing meat trimmed and cut into inch cubes
  • 5 teaspoons vegetable oil
  • 2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • 1 cup red wine
  • 3 1/2 cups beef broth homemade or low-sodium canned
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 medium onion peeled and chopped
  • 5 medium carrots peeled and cut into 1/4 inch rounds
  • 2 large baking potatoes peeled and cut into 3/4 inch cubes
  • 2 teaspoons salt

Instructions

  • Wash hands with soap and water for 20 seconds.

  • Combine the flour and pepper in a bowl, add the beef and toss to coat well. Heat 3 teaspoons of the oil in a large pot. Add the beef a few pieces at a time; do not overcrowd. Cook, turning the pieces until beef is browned on all sides, about 5 minutes per batch; add more oil as needed between batches.

  • Wash the counter and utensils that touched the raw meat. Wash hands with soap and water after handling raw meat.

  • Remove the beef from the pot and add the vinegar and wine. Cook over medium-high heat, scraping the pan with a wooden spoon to loosen any browned bits. Add the beef, beef broth, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a slow simmer.

  • Cover the pot and cook, skimming broth from time to time, until the beef is tender, about 1 1/2 hours.

  • While the beef is cooking, scrub the onion, carrots, and potatoes with a clean vegetable brush under cold running water. Prepare vegetables as directed in the ingredients.

  • Add the onions and carrots to the pot and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes. Add the potatoes and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes more. Add broth or water if the stew is dry. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  • Serve immediately.

Old-Fashioned Beef Stew

Wyoming

Strawberry Iced Latte

May 4, 2026
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Cal Poly: University Budget 2024-2025 *

Facilities Management & Development | $1.2B Student Housing Expansion

Animal science student and barista Lola Coetzee is on the opening shift at Scout Coffee. Photo by Joe Johnston/University Photographer/Cal Poly 11-20-24

Scout Coffee

College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences 


* Why is the Net Position number so elusive in college and university financial statements?  Short answer: So goes the nature of non-profit organizations.  More.

Best Coffee Spots Near Campus

May 4, 2026
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“The coffee-house is an original British institution, but as there are daily effusions of wit and humor

in several of these little periodical papers, I think we may be justly said

to have our Coffee-houses among us.”

(From “The Spectator,” No. 9, March 10, 1711)

Michigan Central | Major Projects University of Michigan Capital Plan

Ellie Younger: Best Coffee Spots Near Campus

Artisanal coffee departs from mass-market approaches and replaces it with emphasis on craftsmanship, quality, and attention to detail throughout the entire process—from cultivation to brewing.  Key aspects:

» Artisanal coffee producers often prioritize high-quality beans. They might focus on specific varieties, regions, or even single-origin beans, showcasing unique flavors and characteristics.

» The roasting process is considered an art in itself. Artisanal coffee roasters carefully roast the beans to bring out the best flavors. They may experiment with different roasting profiles to achieve specific taste profiles.

» Unlike mass-produced coffee, artisanal coffee is often roasted in smaller batches. This allows for better quality control and the ability to pay closer attention to the nuances of each batch.

» Artisanal coffee is appreciated for its distinct flavor profile. Roasters and baristas might highlight tasting notes, aromas, and other characteristics that make each cup unique.

» Artisanal coffee shops or enthusiasts often explore various brewing methods, such as pour-over, AeroPress, or siphon brewing. These methods can be more time-consuming but are believed to extract the best flavors from the beans.

From the way the beans are ground to the water temperature during brewing, artisanal coffee enthusiasts pay attention to every detail to ensure a superior cup of coffee.

— Publisher Marketing

The Great Good Place: Ray Oldenburg

 

 

“I have often pleased myself with considering the two different scenes of life which are carried on at the same time in those different places of rendezvous, and putting those of the playhouse and the coffee-house together.”

(From “The Spectator,” No. 10, March 12, 1711)

America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything

“For decades, left-wing radicals patiently built a revolution in the shadows. Then suddenly, after the death of George Floyd, their ideas exploded into American life.

Corporations denounced the United States as a “system of white supremacy.” Universities pushed racially segregated programs that forced students to address their racial and sexual “privilege.” And schools injected critical race theory in the classroom, dividing children into “oppressor” and “oppressed.”

In this New York Times bestseller, Christopher F. Rufo exposes the inner history of the left-wing intellectuals and militants who slowly and methodically captured America’s institutions, with the goal of subverting them from within. With profiles of Herbert Marcuse, Angela Davis, Paulo Freire, and Derrick Bell, Rufo shows how activists have profoundly influenced American culture with an insidious mix of Marxism and racialist ideology. They’ve replaced “equality” with “equity,” subverted individual rights in favor of group identity, and convinced millions of Americans that racism is endemic in all of society. Their ultimate goal? To replace the constitution with a race-based redistribution regime, administered by “diversity and inclusion” commissars within the bureaucracy.

America’s Cultural Revolution is the definitive account of the radical Left’s long march through the institutions. Through deep historical research, Rufo shows how the ideas first formulated in the pamphlets of the Weather Underground, Black Panther Party, and Black Liberation Army have been sanitized and adopted as the official ideology of America’s prestige institutions, from the Ivy League universities to the boardrooms of Wal-Mart, Disney, and Bank of America. But his book is not just an exposé. It is a meticulously-researched and passionate refutation of the arguments of CRT—and a roadmap for the counter-revolution to come.”

Manhattan Institute


“To be at home is to have a place in the world which is yours, where you are not a stranger and where you find the outlines of your identity. In the modern world, however, where the sense of home has been eroded by technology and bureaucracy, architecture can create a substitute for this sense, by defining spaces which answer to the dreams and memories of the people who live in them.”
— Roger Scruton

Excellence in Facilities Management

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