Related:
Oxford’s Living Libraries: Botanic Garden and Harcourt Arboretum
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
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
“…The solar panels will populate the gothic chapel roof, producing an approximate 105,000 kWh of energy a year – enough to run the chapel’s electricity, and saving around £20,000 in energy bills per year. The college confirmed that any excess energy would be sold off to the national grid.
Solar Panels on King’s College Chapel Roof
Solar panels perform better when listening to music:
A 2013 study by researchers at Imperial College London and Queen Mary University of London showed that solar panels actually work better when exposed to music, of multiple genres. Scientists at the university proved that when exposed to high pitched sounds, like those found in rock and pop music, the solar cells’ power output increased by up to 40 percent. Classical music was also found to increase the solar cells’ energy production, but slightly less so than rock and pop, as it generally plays at a lower pitch than pop and rock. Whether they know it or not, British band Coldplay are just one of the artists benefitting from this research. During their 2021 tour, they installed solar photovoltaic panels in the build-up to each show, “behind the stage, around the stadium and where possible in the outer concourses”…
BS 7671 Requirements for Electrical Installations
The Major Differences in Electrical Standards Between the U.S. and Europe
Representative Calculation: (WAG)
To determine how much electrical power and lighting 12 kilowatts (kW) will provide for an educational facility, we need to consider the following factors:
We start with lighting.
Now we need to allocate power to other loads.
Breakdown:
Summary
The exact capacity will vary based on specific facility needs and equipment efficiency.
“Fish and Chips” | Fred Laidler (1918–1988)
Fish and Chips and the British Working Class, 1870-1930
“Fish and chips was in many ways the pioneer fast-food industry. It became an essential component of working-class diet and popular culture in parts of London, and over wide areas of industrial midland and northern England and southern Scotland, in the early decades of the twentieth century…I propose to argue that the fish and chip trade was not only important enough in itself to justify sustained historical analysis, but also that it provides a useful vantage point for examining important changes in British society more generally.”
— John Walken, 1998, Journal of Social History
In England I’m in a very international community. I’m meeting students attempting to learn English, they are from all over the world. Many have never heard of Jesus, some have heard the name and nothing more. It’s amazing, a kind smile and warm conversation is a perfect pretext… pic.twitter.com/jLiDAc8nlU
— Riley Nuttall (@nuttallriley1) July 11, 2025
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.
So proud to announce the @ellisoninst is beginning construction on our new campus at the @UniofOxford and broadening our mission: Science & Engineering for Humanity. EIT develops & deploys technology in pursuit of solving four of humanity’s most challenging & enduring problems.… pic.twitter.com/vSkHWSS8EK
— David Agus (@DavidAgus) October 15, 2023
“No village or individual shall be compelled to make bridges at river banks,
except those who from of old are legally bound to do so.”
— Magna Cara Clause 23 (Limiting forced labor for infrastructure)
“Clare Hall and King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, from the Banks of the River Cam” / Joseph Mallord William Turner (1793)
Smart Infrastructure: Getting More From Strategic Assets
Dr Jennifer Schooling, Director of CSIC
Dr Ajith Parlikad, CSIC Co-Investigator and Senior Lecturer
Mark Enzer, Global Water Sector Leader
Mott MacDonald; Keith Bowers, Principal Tunnel Engineer, London Underground
Ross Dentten, Asset Information and Configuration Manager, Crossrail
Matt Edwards, Asset Maintenance and Information Manager, Anglian Water Services
Jerry England, Group Digital Railway Director, Network Rail
Volker Buscher, Director, Arup Digital
Smart Infrastructure is a global opportunity worth £2trn-4.8trn. The world is experiencing a fourth industrial revolution due to the rapid development of technologies and digital abundance.
Smart Infrastructure involves applying this to economic infrastructure for the benefit of all stakeholders. It will allow owners and operators to get more out of what they already have, increasing capacity, efficiency and resilience and improving services.
It brings better performance at lower cost. Gaining more from existing assets is the key to enhancing service provision despite constrained finance and growing resource scarcity. It will often be more cost-effective to add to the overall value of mature infrastructure via digital enhancements than by physical enhancements – physical enhancements add `more of the same’, whereas digital enhancements can transform the existing as well.
Smart Infrastructure will shape a better future. Greater understanding of the performance of our infrastructure will allow new infrastructure to be designed and delivered more efficiently and to provide better whole-life value.
Data is the key – the ownership of it and the ability to understand and act on it. Industry, organisations and professionals need to be ready to adjust in order to take advantage of the emerging opportunities. Early adopters stand to gain the most benefit. Everyone in the infrastructure sector has a choice as to how fast they respond to the changes that Smart Infrastructure will bring. But everyone will be affected.
Change is inevitable. Progress is optional. Now is the time for the infrastructure industry to choose to be Smart.
LEARN MORE:
Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction
Perspective: Since this paper is general in its recommendations, we provide examples of specific campus infrastructure data points that are difficult, if not impossible, to identify and “make smart” — either willfully, for lack of funding, for lack of consensus, for lack of understanding or leadership:
Since so much of what we do in standards setting is built upon a foundation of a shared understanding and agreement of the meaning of words (no less so than in technical standard setting) that time is well spent reflecting upon the origin of the nouns and verbs of that we use every day. Best practice cannot be discovered, much less promulgated, without its understanding secured with common language. |
Hanging with grandad just like the old days 😂 pic.twitter.com/fQVarEQ5Iw
— Alexandra Churchill ✌🏼⭐️⭐️ (@churchill_alex) December 2, 2023
Virginia Woolf: pic.twitter.com/8IPw1Fmevk
— Dr. Maya C. Popa (@MayaCPopa) May 25, 2023
Cambridge: English language education in the era of generative AI
We must spread our accent further pic.twitter.com/qEc3Cqd2cH
— Midwest vs. Everybody (@midwestern_ope) April 3, 2025
Goodnight my angel, time to close your eyes
And save these questions for another day
I think I know what you’ve been asking me
I think you know what I’ve been trying to say
I promised I would never leave you
Then you should always know
Wherever you may go, no matter where you are
I never will be far away
Goodnight my angel, now it’s time to sleep
And still so many things I want to say
Remember all the songs you sang for me
When we went sailing on an emerald bay
And like a boat out on the ocean
I’m rocking you to sleep
The water’s dark and deep, inside this ancient heart
You’ll always be a part of me
Goodnight my angel, now it’s time to dream
And dream how wonderful your life will be
Someday your child may cry, and if you sing this lullaby
Then in your heart there will always be a part of me
Someday we’ll all be gone
But lullabies go on and on
They never die
That’s how you and I will be
— Billy Joel
Evensong "Lullabye/Goodnight, My Angel" 1992 | Billy Joel
Chór Warszawskiego Uniwersytetu Medycznego
Choir of the Medical University of Warsawhttps://t.co/dr1W8g7L6T@UniWarszawskihttps://t.co/Hfkl1LoWeehttps://t.co/Z55taDFARGhttps://t.co/RtUe81ojCN pic.twitter.com/JBDDzrOKnU— Standards Michigan (@StandardsMich) March 10, 2024
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
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Ann Arbor, MI 48104 USA
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