Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Sunday, May 3rd, 2020
Listen to this entire Podcast at:
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/covid-19-reopen/
Here are some excerpts:
Steve Dubner recently called up Steve Levitt, his Freakonomics friend and co-author. He’s an economist at the University of Chicago — which, like all schools, has moved to remote teaching.
DUBNER: So, Levitt, how’s your sheltering in place going, generally?
LEVITT: Not too bad. I’m lucky I didn’t lose my job and I’m healthy. I don’t really like people that much in the first place so I don’t mind being isolated. So I know other people are really suffering, but I’ve been super lucky.
DUBNER: So let me ask you this: How useful would you say that economists have been so far during this pandemic?
LEVITT: I think economists didn’t really have a very big role in the beginning and the middle, in the sense that it was really more like a medical issue or a policy issue. But I think on the exit from quarantine, economists can be really important because the tradeoffs we’re talking about here are the kind of tradeoffs that regular people don’t think about very much, like the tradeoff between life and death versus economic activity. I think there’s also just a lot of room for economists here to be sensible guides as we think about what will work and what won’t work.
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Tags: COVID-19, Economics, Reopening America
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Friday, March 27th, 2020
Source: Science Friday
As suspected and confirmed cases of COVID-19 skyrocket in the United States, testing availability remains limited, leaving people wondering if their cough is something to worry about. But testing isn’t just a balm for anxiety—public health officials need data about how far the new virus has spread to make decisions about how to best protect people, and where to send critical resources, like masks and gowns. Accurate information is the frontline of defense, but scientists still have pressing questions about the novel disease. For instance, how many people who are infected actually have symptoms? If you do have symptoms, how likely are you to get severely sick?
Until we are able to test both healthy and symptomatic people at scale, citizen science can help fill the gaps in tracking who has COVID-19. And the public health team that launched Flu Near You to track seasonal flu symptoms is now doing just that: soliciting your symptoms in the Covid Near You project.
Covid Near You co-founder John Brownstein of Boston Children’s Hospital explains what questions the project may help answer, and what trends Covid Near You will track—including why this data is so valuable to public health efforts. Sign up at www.covidnearyou.org to report how you’re feeling—whether you’re healthy or have symptoms.
Listen to this podcast here.
Tags: Covid, CovidNearYou, Harvard, Harvard Medical School
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Monday, March 28th, 2016
 It’s easy to see why surveying and mapping professionals have taken such a keen interest in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology. Gathering info from the sky has been an approach that’s been utilized for a long time now, but the costs associated with traditional manned aircraft makes the endeavor extremely expensive. UAVs offer a cost effective alternative with far more flexibility in terms of being able to get into the air quickly and without as much logistical support.
What’s more, UAVs can improve data collection accuracy and efficiency, optimize a workflow while also enabling the production of cost effective turnkey DSM’s and orthos whenever they’re needed. Simply put, UAVs make it far easier to gather the info needed to create maps by reducing costs and simplifying the image-capturing process.
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Tags: drones, surveying, uavs
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Monday, August 24th, 2015
In a world that is constantly changing and rapidly growing, having a stable infrastructure is vital to the economy and everyday life. It’s fair to say, we take our infrastructure for granted and only give it the attention that it needs when something goes wrong or is in need of repair, resulting in interruption of traffic flow, transportation of goods and utilities, and high costs. The facts are clear that an aging infrastructure is inevitable. Roads, bridges and rail tracks age through usage over the years and damage due to natural disasters and accidents can speed up that aging process.
Transportation Departments and local governing agencies usually team up to create Operating and Maintenance Plans (O&M Plans) to keep their infrastructure in optimal condition. O&M Plans usually are a direct result of a well-devised project plan and development at the birth of a project, before it even breaks ground. In today’s economy, every dollar counts and every decision needs to be a good one in order to obtain a better world of transporting people, goods and materials safely and efficiently. Autodesk’s Infraworks is the tool that can and has been making project planning and development for infrastructure designs better and more efficient.
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Tags: Autodesk Infraworks, Microdesk, Orly Bisquera
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Wednesday, September 10th, 2014
Article source: Caliper Corporation
Maptitude Review
The Good
Large feature set; easy to use. Excellent support of Office apps; new tools create maps that display sales or service territories; best drive-time tool; updated demographic data includes Census estimates; competitively priced.
The Not So Good
A little expensive for an Office-style product (though inexpensive for a business mapping application); requires 4GB minimum disk space; lacks a ribbon interface.
The Verdict
This excellent map-based business data analyzer is a smart addition for any organization running Windows and Office who wants to do geographic analysis.
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Tags: Caliper, GIS, Maps, Software Review
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Tuesday, August 5th, 2014
Data companies are not a novelty in the marketing world. For instance, RL Polk, a leader in automotive data was founded in the late 1800’s, Acxiom emerged in the late 1960s, Experian flourished most notably in the 1990’s when it was purchased by GUS (Great Universal Stores) and later demerged. All provide valuable insights on audiences, specific consumer behaviors and tendencies. GIS companies, such as Esri, are also driving a stake in the ground as the mapping giant gathers a vast amount of info and redistributes to companies that can leverage the data. Each data provider brings their own insights and flavors to the table. Complementing how those insights are packaged, delivered and reinforced provide the real value.
Location-based advertising technology companies have been known to team with consumer data providers to draw insights from demographic and lifestyle data. This data is then presented to marketers with the ability to reach specific consumers on their desktop and mobile devices. The consumer currency can be pulled, sliced-and-diced from the provider’s proprietary database and suited to fit most ad technology, depending how granular the data can be packaged.
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Tags: Esri, location marketing, location-based, Moasis Global
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Monday, April 21st, 2014
“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing” – Theodore Roosevelt
Yes, I know that there is no such word as “wronger”. But I also know that there is no such thing as an infallible survey, and most certainly that there is no such thing as an infallible GIS. Disclaimer: I am a licensed surveyor, but I have also been involved in geodetic framework development and data acquisition for GIS for three decades. I have also seen instances of a disturbing reversal in momentum that had been leading us towards realizing the dream of seamless enterprise geospatial data – push-back from both sides of the survey/engineering-GIS “fence”. Mostly this is due to mutual misunderstanding; and primarily the mistaken notion that there needs to be a “fence” in the first place. The real harm this “fence-ism” does is in wasting data-rich and accurate resources.
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Tags: Gavin Schrock, GIS, Survey
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Thursday, April 10th, 2014
Weather events strike at the very heart of a utility’s business: the asset infrastructure. Pairing weather data and a geographic information system (GIS) solution provides utilities with a logical partnership.
Modern-day utilities rely on a GIS solution to manage and monitor asset infrastructure. A GIS provides a central repository for a utility’s asset and network data and makes that information visible in an intuitive, real-time map display. Utilities also have the ability to make immediate updates on the status and condition of assets in the control room, as well as in the field. With just a few keystrokes, asset information can be updated, and network and infrastructure changes can be modeled and designed. In short, GIS is a comprehensive, real-time, enterprise geospatial database of all network assets—a single version of the truth. (more…)
Tags: Disaster Management, GIS, Matt Zimmerman, Schneider Electric
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Thursday, March 27th, 2014
Data! More data! Still more data! The exploding appetite for enriching GIS datasets with more and better data to support decision making is contributing to the rising demand for custom datasets. It is clear that richly attributed, custom datasets will soon become the “coin of the GIS realm.” In addition to the increasing availability of precision data, the demand for more, better, and faster GIS data conflation is also driven by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s recent directive to suppliers to aggregate existing data to meet stringent NGA requirements.
New tools and different methods are now required to create the more comprehensively-attributed, custom datasets that are replacing the “good enough” datasets that sufficed in the past. Some early adopters in the GIS market already use a new technology: automated conflation, or “intelligent aggregation” of GIS data. They seem to think that it will give them a competitive advantage that will differentiate the winners from the losers. This article reviews the concept of conflation and two toolkits that can help any GIS professional be more efficient and accurate. (more…)
Tags: Maps
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