Tag Archives: Michigan

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Smart Cities: Wicked Problems

“Oxford from the River with Christ Church in the Foreground” | William Turner (1820)

 

Smart cities: moving beyond urban cybernetics to tackle wicked problems

Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Volume 8, Issue 1, March 2015 | “The Smart City”

 

Abstract. This article makes three related arguments. First, that although many definitions of the smart city have been proposed, corporate promoters say a smart city uses information technology to pursue efficient systems through real-time monitoring and control. Second, this definition is not new and equivalent to the idea of urban cybernetics debated in the 1970s. Third, drawing on a discussion of Rio de Janeiro’s Operations Center, I argue that viewing urban problems as wicked problems allows for more fundamental solutions than urban cybernetics, but requires local innovation and stakeholder participation. Therefore the last section describes institutions for municipal innovation and IT-enabled collaborative planning.

Abiit sed non oblitus | Joseph P. Overton

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Can Voters Detect Malicious Manipulation of Ballot Marking Devices?

 

Can Voters Detect Malicious Manipulation of Ballot Marking Devices?

Matthew Bernhard, et. al

University of Michigan

 

Abstract:  Ballot marking devices (BMDs) allow voters to select candidates on a computer kiosk, which prints a paper ballot that the voter can review before inserting it into a scanner to be tabulated. Unlike paperless voting machines, BMDs provide voters an opportunity to verify an auditable physical record of their choices, and a growing number of U.S. jurisdictions are adopting them for all voters. However, the security of BMDs depends on how reliably voters notice and correct any adversarially induced errors on their printed ballots. In order to measure voters’ error detection abilities, we conducted a large study (N = 241) in a realistic polling place setting using real voting machines that we modified to introduce an error into each printout. Without intervention, only 40% of participants reviewed their printed ballots at all, and only 6.6% told a poll worker something was wrong. We also find that carefully designed interventions can improve verification performance. Verbally instructing voters to review the printouts and providing a written slate of candidates for whom to vote both significantly increased review and reporting rates-although the improvements may not be large enough to provide strong security in close elections, especially when BMDs are used by all voters. Based on these findings, we make several evidence-based recommendations to help better defend BMD-based elections.

 

IEEE provides this article for public use without charge.

Chicken Tacos with Rice and Beans

 

50,351 students
5,743 full-time instructional faculty
6,578 full-time non-instructional staff
48,677 residents City of East Lansing in 8.125 square miles

Infrastructure Planning and Facilities

Nourriture d’automne

 

 

Michigan Lower Peninsula

 

Electrical Commissioning Specifications

University of California San Diego Microgrid Installation



The InterNational Electrical Testing Association (NETA) is an association of leading electrical testing companies comprised of visionaries who are committed to advancing the industry’s standards for power system installation and maintenance to ensure the highest level of reliability and safety.  It has launched a new revision cycle to update  the existing Edition of ANSI/NETA ECS Standard for Electrical Commissioning Specifications for Electrical Power Equipment and Systems.  From the standard prospectus:

Scope: It is the purpose of these specifications to assure that tested electrical equipment and systems are operational, are within applicable standards and manufacturer’s tolerances, and are installed in accordance with design specifications.

Project Need: The purpose of these specifications is to assure that tested electrical systems are safe, reliable, and operational; are in conformance with applicable standards and manufacturers’ tolerances; and are installed in accordance with design specifications. These specifications are specifically intended for application on electrical power equipment and systems.

Stakeholders: Commissioning agents, governmental agencies, A&E firms, inspection authorities, owners of facilities that utilize large blocks of electrical energy, electrical testing firms.

This standard is not intended to be submitted for consideration as an ISO, IEC, or ISO/IEC JTC-1 standard.

Revision cycles to other titles in the NETA catalogue:

NETA standards are typically referenced in electrical system construction documents for setting safety criteria before local authorities permit initial system energization and building occupancy.  The NETA suite is also among the constellation of consensus documents that set the standard of care for the safety of building electrical systems across the full span of an electrical system life cycle.

We review the NETA catalog jointly with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee which is the locus of the most informed technical and business opinions on customer-owned electrical power generating facilities for the education facilities industry.   That committee meets online twice today:

Teleconferences | May 22, 2018

All standards dealing with the #TotalCostofOwnership of distributed electrical energy resources are on the standing agenda of our weekly Open Door teleconferences which are hosted weekly on Wednesday at 11 AM Eastern time.  Click here to log in.

Issue:[13-44]

Category: Electrical, Facility Asset Management, #SmartCampus

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Jim Harvey, Gary Walls, Glenn Keates

“The Big Chill” Morning Coffee

“Amazing tradition.

They throw a great party for you

on the one day they know you can’t come.”

Sam (Tom Berenger)

 

Michigan Central

Roger Scruton: Why Are Intellectuals Mostly Left?

Amy Wax: The Perilous Quest for Equal Results in Academia

University of Oxford: Tackling Corruption in the University

Heather MacDonald: Feminist Takeover of Academia

Jordan Peterson: Intellectual Corruption of Colleges and Universities

 




Best Coffee Spots Near Campus


George H.W. Bush 1991 University of Michigan Commencement Speech on “Political Correctness”

“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.”

Purpose-Built Student Accommodation

Agriculture

“Harvest Rest” | George Cole

One characteristic of the “customer experience” of school children, dormitory residents, patients in university-affiliated hospitals and attendees of large athletic events is the quality of food.  School districts and large research universities are responsible for hundreds of food service enterprises for communities that are sensitive to various points along the food supply chain.

The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) is one of the first names in standards setting for the technology and management of the major components of the global food supply chain.   It has organized its ANSI-accredited standards setting enterprise into about 200 technical committees developing 260-odd consensus documents*.   It throws off a fairly steady stream of public commenting opportunities; many of them relevant to agricultural equipment manufacturers (i.e, the Producer interest where the most money is) but enough of them relevant to consumers (i.e. the User interest where the least money is) and agricultural economics academic programs that we follow the growth of its best practice bibliography.

A few of the ASABE consensus documents that may be of interest to faculty and students in agricultural and environmental science studies are listed below:

  • Safety for Farmstead Equipment
  • Safety Color Code for Educational and Training Laboratories
  • Recommended Methods for Measurement and Testing of LED Products for Plant Growth and Development
  • Distributed Ledger Technology applications to the global food supply chain

The ASABE bibliography is dominated by product-related standards; a tendency we see in many business models of standards setting organizations because of the influence of global industrial conglomerates who can bury the cost of their participation into a sold product.  Our primary interest lies in the movement of interoperability standards — much more difficult — as discussed in our ABOUT.

The home page for the ASABEs standards setting enterprise is linked below:

ASABE Standards Development

As of this posting we find no live consultation notices for interoperability standards relevant to educational settlements.  Sometimes you can find them ‘more or less concurrently’ posted at the linked below:

ANSI Standards Action

We always encourage our colleagues to participate directly in the ASABE standards development process.  Students are especially welcomed into the ASABE Community.  Jean Walsh (walsh@asabe.org) and Scott Cederquist (cedarq@asabe.org) are listed as contacts.

 

Category: Food

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Jack Janveja, Richard Robben


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Iced Americano

Michigan Central | Michigan West | Michigan Upper Peninsula | Michigan East

Bert Askwith worked his way through college shuttling students to and from Detroit Metropolitan Airport until his graduation in 1931; when two semester tuition cost $300.  With no student debt he founded and grew Campus Coach Lines that still provides the same services at many other US campuses.  He donated part of his fortune to establish a cafe in the Undergraduate Library; which now serves an expanding and bewildering catalog of caffeine-based drinks found in educational settlements worldwide.


Kitchenettes

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