“I have found that it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk
that keep the darkness at bay.”
— J.R. R. Tolkein
Annual Report and Accounts 2023/24: £1.310 billion
Tolkien, author of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit,” completed his studies at the University of Birmingham in 1915. He graduated with first-class honors in English Language and Literature. After graduation, Tolkien went on to serve in World War I before embarking on his distinguished career as a writer and academic.
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Old Joe Clocktower | Fixing Old Joe
Roger Scruton “Why Intellectuals are Mostly Left”
coffee shop 🍪☕ pic.twitter.com/W8EOY5auQu
— 𝙳𝚊𝚛𝚔 𝚊𝚌𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚊 𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖𝚜 (@AcademiaDreams) May 23, 2024
One in every two jobs in the West Midlands are filled by university graduates as latest @UniversitiesUK data shows how crucial universities are to the UK industrial strategyhttps://t.co/hJLrqXs2D2 pic.twitter.com/yZkZ3bJWv1
— Uni of Birmingham (@unibirmingham) March 10, 2025
Our researchers have found that banning phones in schools doesn’t improve students’ mental health and wellbeing. However, increased phone and social media use correlated with negative impacts. Addressing use both in and out of school is crucial. Read more: https://t.co/OrMdq735f5 pic.twitter.com/hkuuqGnQ8q
— Uni of Birmingham (@unibirmingham) February 5, 2025
The International Plumbing Code (IPC) is developed to harmonize with the full span of ICC’s family of building codes. The IPC sets minimum regulations for plumbing systems and components to protect life, health and safety of building occupants and the public. The IPC is available for adoption by jurisdictions ranging from states to towns, and is currently adopted on the state or local level in 35 states in the U.S, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico.
CLICK HERE for the 2021 Public Access Edition
The IPC is developed in the ICC Group A Code development framework and concluded its revision cycle in late 2021 under the circumstances of the pandemic. The 2023 International Plumbing Code revision cycle will not begin until early 2023 but it is never too soon to understand the issues from previous revision cycles to enlighten approaches to the forthcoming Group A revision cycle. The complete monograph of the Group A Codes is linked below, with comments on IPC proposals starting on Page 1417 of this 1613 page document:
2021 IPC | Group A Public Comment Monograph
Because transgender issues are on the agenda of many facility managers we direct you to Page 1424 of the rather large document linked above.
As always, 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.
Real asset managers for school districts, colleges, universities and technical schools in the Las Vegas region should take advantage of the opportunity to observe the ICC code-development process during the upcoming ICC Annual Conference in Las Vegas, October 20-23 during which time the Group B c Public Comment Hearings will take place. Even though the IPC has moved farther along the ICC code development process it is still enlightening to observe how it work. The Group B Hearings are usually webcast — and we will signal the link to the webcast when it becomes available — but the experience of seeing how building codes are determined is enlightening when you can watch it live and on site.
Issue: [16-133]
Category: Plumbing, Water, Mechanical
Colleagues: Eric Albert, Richard Robben, Larry Spielvogel
#StandardsNewMexico
LEARN MORE:
Neutral Public Bathroom Design
— Leslie (@Hopeleslie1234) August 10, 2024
Post-Secondary Education: Facilities Inventory and Classification Manual
Managemen: Five Questions You Should Ask About Your Custodial Closets
Western Michigan University: The Custodian’s Role in Student Success
State of Illinois Administrative Code for Housekeeping and Storage
McGill University Special Building Areas: Custodial Areas
Washington University St. Louis: Custodial Space Requirements
Florida State University: Custodial Closet Design
Florida State University: Design Criteria and Requirements for Custodial Closets
Oregon State University Custodial Area Design
Oregon State University: Custodial Closets
ASHRAE Standard 62.1: Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality: Custodial Area Ventilation
“The best men are molded out of faults”
— William Shakespeare
The American National Standards Institute is the Global Secretariat for ISO Technical Committee 260 (ISO/TC 260); organized to develop policy templates for standardization solutions that improve management of the workforce in any nation; in any sector or industry. These human resource management standards offer broad, evidence-based guidance to individuals with people management responsibilities, whether formally or informally assigned, in organizations for the benefit of both internal and external stakeholders.
Gleaned from inputs from human resource experts globally, these products are designed to provide guidance on key HR functions in support of its workforce and its management, and sustainable organizational performance. TC/260 is focused on the following tasks:
• Ensuring wide market relevance of its HRM standards.
• Facilitating international business.
• Providing guidance on professional standards of practice.
• Facilitating measurement, comparability and consistency of HR practice with the aim of transparent benchmarking.
• Improving internal processes.
• Enabling organizations to better achieve optimal organizational outcomes with improved management of human capital
The business plan is linked below:
STRATEGIC BUSINESS PLAN ISO/TC 260: Human Resource Management 2018/19 (3rd edition)
The original University of Michigan user-interest advocacy enterprise was participating member in this project* but that engagement was interrupted suddenly in October 2016 (See ABOUT). We have since picked up where we left off with the same people collaborating with Standards Michigan. ANSI remains the global Secretariat.
We maintain this project on the standing agenda of both our Global and our Human Resource colloquia. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.















“I am sorry that my job is getting in the way of your learning. I hope that the time you gain can be productively used in employment so that you can pay for your college education”
Class Is Canceled Until Further Notice While I Do My Job – McSweeney’s https://t.co/TDhIsAkXau
— Bryan Dewsbury (@BMDewsbury) March 28, 2024
Issues: [14-99] and [15-52]
Category: Administration & Management
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Christine Fischer, Lee S. Webster, Richard Robben
ANSI Contacts: Michelle Deane (mdeane@ansi.org)
US TAG Contacts: Lorelei Carobolante, Jim Lewis
*We left off just as the ISO/TS 30411:2018, Human resource management-Quality of hire metric (QoH) standard was rolling out. The QoH was, and still is a performance metric for talent acquisition teams, critical for determining the effectiveness of the recruitment process and has a consequential impact on an organization’s performance. The QoH structure is intended to be scalable to the needs of any organization regardless of size, industry or sector and is relevant to people with an interest in workforce planning, organizational design and development, talent management succession planning, recruitment, and human capital reporting. Read more about ISO/TS 30411:2018 on ISO’s news site, and access it on the ANSI Web Store.
More
The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, Max Weber
Materiality of Human Capital Metrics | Lee S. Webster
ISO Focus January 2015 Anthony-Robben – Education Enterprise pp 33-37
ISO Guidelines Help Measure Employees’ Impact on Company Performance
Julia is a programming language that has gained popularity in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and scientific computing for several reasons.
High Performance: Julia is designed to be a high-performance language, often compared to languages like C and Fortran. It achieves this performance through just-in-time (JIT) compilation, allowing it to execute code at speeds close to statically compiled languages. This makes Julia well-suited for computationally intensive AI tasks such as numerical simulations and deep learning.
Ease of Use: Julia is designed with a clean and expressive syntax that is easy to read and write. It feels similar to other high-level languages like Python, making it accessible to developers with a background in Python or other scripting languages.
Multiple Dispatch: Julia’s multiple dispatch system allows functions to be specialized on the types of all their arguments, leading to more generic and efficient code. This feature is particularly useful when dealing with complex data types and polymorphic behavior, which is common in AI and scientific computing.
Rich Ecosystem: Julia has a growing ecosystem of packages and libraries for AI and scientific computing. Libraries like Flux.jl for deep learning, MLJ.jl for machine learning, and DifferentialEquations.jl for solving differential equations make it a powerful choice for AI researchers and practitioners.
Interoperability: Julia offers excellent interoperability with other languages, such as Python, C, and Fortran. This means you can leverage existing code written in these languages and seamlessly integrate it into your Julia AI projects.
Open Source: Julia is an open-source language, which means it is freely available and has an active community of developers and users. This makes it easy to find resources, documentation, and community support for your AI projects.
Parallel and Distributed Computing: Julia has built-in support for parallel and distributed computing, making it well-suited for tasks that require scaling across multiple cores or distributed computing clusters. This is beneficial for large-scale AI projects and simulations.
Interactive Development: Julia’s REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop) and notebook support make it an excellent choice for interactive data analysis and experimentation, which are common in AI research and development.
While Julia has many advantages for AI applications, it’s important to note that its popularity and ecosystem continue to grow, so some specialized AI libraries or tools may still be more mature in other languages like Python. Therefore, the choice of programming language should also consider the specific requirements and constraints of your AI project, as well as the availability of libraries and expertise in your development team.
We present a use case below:
A Julia Module for Polynomial Optimization with Complex Variables applied to Optimal Power Flow
Julie Sliwak – Lucas Létocart | Université Sorbonne Paris Nord
Manuel Ruiz | RTE R&D, Paris La Défense
Miguel F. Anjos | University of Edinburgh
ABSTRACT. Many optimization problems in power transmission networks can be formulated as polynomial problems with complex variables. A polynomial optimization problem with complex variables consists in optimizing a real-valued polynomial whose variables and coefficients are complex numbers subject to some complex polynomial equality or inequality constraints. These problems are usually directly expressed with real variables. In this work, we propose a Julia module allowing the representation of polynomial problems in their original complex formulation. This module is applied to power system optimization and its generic design enables the description of several variants of power system problems. Results for the Optimal Power Flow in Alternating Current problem and for the Preventive-Security Constrained Optimal Power Flow problem are presented.
CLICK HERE to order complete paper
The University of Notre Dame and St. Mary’s plan construction next year on a new on-site facility to provide child care for faculty, staff and students with children between the ages of 6 weeks and 3 years old. Growing out of the recommendations of a faculty and staff committee charged with looking at child care assistance opportunities, the new facility will open in summer 2025 and be operated by KinderCare, the nation’s largest child care and early education provider.
The center will be located on the north edge of campus near White Field, adjacent to Beichner Hall and The Landings at Notre Dame apartments.
The Early Childhood Development Centers at Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College will continue to offer early childhood programs for children age 2 through kindergarten and will work in collaboration with KinderCare.
“We welcome KinderCare to the Notre Dame campus. Infant care is greatly needed in our community, and we are pleased that the University continues to support families’ needs for quality early childhood care and education. We look forward to continuing our mission to provide the community with high-quality accredited preschool and kindergarten programs at our two ECDC campus sites,”
— Kari Alford, Executive Director.
Standards Michigan, spun-off in 2016 from the original University of Michigan Business & Finance Operation, has peppered NFPA 70 technical committees writing the 2016-2026 National Electric Code with proposals to reduce the size of building premise feeder infrastructure; accommodating the improvements made in illumination and rotating machinery energy conservation since the 1980’s (variable frequency drives, LED lighting, controls, etc.)
These proposals are routinely voted down in 12-20 member committees representing manufacturers (primarily) though local inspection authorities are complicit in overbuilding electric services because they “bill by the service panel ampere rating”. In other words, when a municipality can charge a higher inspection fee for a 1200 ampere panel, what incentive is there to support changes to the NEC that takes that inspection fee down to 400 amperes?
The energy conservation that would result from the acceptance of our proposals into the NEC are related to the following: reduced step down transformer sizes, reduced wire and conduit sizes, reduced panelboard sizes, reduced electric room cooling systems — including the HVAC cooling systems and the ceiling plenum sheet metal carrying the waste heat away. Up to 20 percent energy savings is in play here and all the experts around the table know it. So much for the economic footprint of the largest non-residential building construction market in the United States — about $120 billion annually.
The market incumbents are complicit in ignoring energy conservation opportunity. To paraphrase one of Mike Anthony’s colleagues representing electrical equipment manufacturers:
“You’re right Mike, but I am getting paid to vote against you.”
NFPA Electrical Division knows it, too.
Rightsizing Commercial Electrical Power Systems: Review of a New Exception in NEC Section 220.12
Michael A. Anthony – James R. Harvey
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
University of Houston, Clear Lake, Texas
For decades, application of National Electrical Code (NEC) rules for sizing services, feeders and branch circuits has resulted in unused capacity in almost all occupancy classes. US Department of Energy data compiled in 1999 indicates average load on building transformers between 10 and 25 percent. More recent data gathered by the educational facilities industry has verified this claim. Recognizing that aggressive energy codes are driving energy consumption lower, and that larger than necessary transformers create larger than necessary flash hazard, the 2014 NEC will provide an exception in Section 220.12 that will permit designers to reduce transformer kVA ratings and all related components of the power delivery system. This is a conservative, incremental step in the direction of reduced load density that is limited to lighting systems. More study of feeder and branch circuit loading is necessary to inform discussion about circuit design methods in future revisions of the NEC.
CLICK HERE for complete paper
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/njrDAbSpwB pic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
— USPTO (@uspto) July 13, 2023
Standards Michigan Group, LLC
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Ann Arbor, MI 48104 USA
888-746-3670