Category: Technology

Lighting That Makes You Feel Good

Posted on by Shanna Evans

Most people walk through life looking straight ahead. Constantly moving, performing their daily activities as quickly and efficiently as possible. For us, our gaze tends to travel upward. As lighting designers, what has become part of the background for most people fascinates and intrigues us. The constant effect both natural and artificial lighting has on individuals and their health has been a hot research topic and keeps gaining interest from designers and healthcare providers alike.

Daylight helps people stay on a 24-hour cycle. A person’s natural day is actually 24.2 hours long. Without daylight, someone could be 1.5 hours out of sync by the end of a week and 6 hours off by the end of a month! A person’s circadian rhythm can be set, or reset, by both natural and artificial lighting.

In healthcare, the use of lighting with an amber hue helps patients rest, while lighting with a blue hue helps nurses and other workers stay awake to perform their jobs overnight without feeling overly tired. This blue light is also known as a circadian stimulus. The blue light that triggers our circadian stimulus can commonly be found in fluorescent lighting. Blue light, in nature, is found as the sun rises throughout the workday. Circadian stimulus is now being introduced at senior centers. It has been found that introducing blue light in the evening delays your bed time so senior center residents who go to bed early and wake up early can now get into a more natural sleep pattern. The amber light, which relaxes our bodies, is found primarily in incandescent light bulbs. Amber light, in nature, is found as the sun sets at the end of our day. But watch out! If you like to sleep with your TV on, the blue light from the screen can also affect your circadian rhythm and sleep cycles, leading to you feeling groggy in the morning.

Natural daylight can do wonders for someone’s overall well-being simply by lifting the spirits of ill patients and making them feel closer to nature rather than stuck in a hospital bed; however, artificial lighting can help patients feel better by emulating natural daylight. There are three types of artificial lighting – brilliance, focal, and ambient. All three of these types are seen in nature and mimicked in architectural lighting. Ambient lighting simulates natural daylight – the even glow of a clear sky. By providing recessed or suspended lighting to get an ambient glow on both a work surface and the ceiling, people feel comfortable in their environment and can perform daily tasks. Focal lighting is highlighting certain objects to draw attention to, this can be seen in nature as sunrays bursting through clouds on a stormy day. Focal lighting can draw people in, and in some healthcare settings, act as a ray of hope.

As people become more aware of the way lighting can affect their lives, lighting design and how it interacts with architecture will become more prominent in healthcare and residential settings. Our goal as lighting designers is to help everyone appreciate both the subtle and dazzling effects lighting can have on us all.

About the Authors:

Barry Reeb is an electrical designer with more than 3 years of electrical design experience.  With a focus on lighting design, he has spent 2 years doing fieldwork in commercial, residential, and photovoltaic installations.  He has focused heavily on an electrical design using both AutoCAD and Revit software.

Julia Heutel, LC, LEED AP BD+C, is a Lighting Designer with more than 5 years of architectural/specialty lighting design experience in the healthcare, educational, retail, and hospitality industries.  She serves as President of the local chapter of the Illuminating Engineering Society. Julia has excellent lighting system understanding as well as communication and leadership skills. Her experience includes architectural luminaire selections, engineering of the lighting controls, and 3-D simulated modeling.

A Brief and Moveable History of Aviation Security

Posted on by Ross & Baruzzini

In “the business” – those familiar with the vagaries of aviation security – we too often get so immersed that we lose context. Aviation security is not in fact a steady-state feature of aviation, but a constantly evolving response to moving circumstances.

In the Beginning

Commercial aviation originated as a means to provide relatively unfettered public transportation across large distances. Air transport is inherently vulnerable to unlawful interference and attack. Air flight has also always been a spectacular and visible feat, enhancing the system’s attractiveness as a target for activity seeking spectacular attention.

These very achievements – reliable and speedy long-distance travel and technical mastery of human flight – have brought into existence a particular form of malice and a particular set of solutions to it, collectively known as aviation security.

Criminal intervention in aviation is nearly as old as commercial flight. The first record of a hijacked aircraft is in 1930 when a Pan American mail plane was hijacked by Peruvian revolutionaries seeking to drop leaflets over Lima. Security-related incidents tended to be dominated by aircraft hijacking for several decades thereafter, usually by persons seeking expeditious political asylum, rather than political leverage.

International security approaches followed this trend, with the gradual introduction of magnetic screening devices aimed at detecting guns and other metallic weapons being carried onto airplanes.

The situation changed dramatically in the 1980s with the appearance of terrorist bombings of aircraft. Beginning with TWA #843 and culminating in the 1988 bombing of Pan American #103 in Lockerbie, radical organizations sought to create terror and call attention to their causes by the destruction of aircraft in flight. This development, coincident with the rapid development of electronic systems, ushered in the modern era of aviation security.

Prior to 1988, although international aviation governing agencies were in existence, no comprehensive regulatory guidance was available and the technical approaches to securing the aviation system were sporadic and largely manual.

Advent of Electronic Security 1988-2001

Two seminal documents were forged in the late 1980s: The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) formulated Annex 17 to the Chicago Convention outlining international aviation security standards, and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued Part 107 to the Code of Federal Regulation 49. These governmental responses to aviation terrorism produced the first appearance of electronic security.

By 2001, virtually every commercial airport had incorporated the most basic security measures, including delineation of security zones, electronic badge access to secure zones, control between public and sterile areas, electronic control of security badges, radiographic and magnetic screening of departing passengers and luggage and some form of video surveillance in critical areas. A body of knowledge grew up in this period, industry committees were formed and the business of aviation security matured into a relatively widespread feature of air travel and aviation operations.

Modern Integrated Security 2001

The attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, opened a new chapter in threats and responses to aviation security, which produced – again, in conjunction with rapid technological developments – a host of more integrated and effective security approaches and solutions. The “Post 9/11” aviation security environment shifted to address the specter of suicide attacks including the use of aircraft itself as an instrument of terror and destruction.

Interestingly, some of the more advanced security strategies have resulted from the realization that reliance on technology alone does not provide the most comprehensive and effective measures to secure the system. Advanced practitioners began to adopt models of balanced security, layered concentric security, integrated security processes with building design and technology, and establishment of situational and domain awareness.

The global picture for aviation security was altered dramatically in 2001, as both regulatory influences and heightened awareness combined to create a massive demand for new security technologies. Rapid introduction of new products and technologies ensued and continues in the current decade. The global homeland security market has been estimated at $200 billion, with as much as 10% of the total devoted to the aviation industry.

Key advances in aviation include:

  • Internet Protocol (IP) Video: introduction of advanced IP video cameras and all-digital systems.
  • RADAR Applications: use of shortwave radio detection and ranging (RADAR) for anomaly detection and integration into airport security.
  • Physical Security Information Management ( PSIM ): software and applications to integrate multiple independent sensors/technologies to create comprehensive domain awareness.
  • Biometric Technologies: use of personal characteristics, such as fingerprints, hand geometry, retina, and face recognition, to establish and authenticate identity.
  • Advanced Passenger Imaging: use of millimeter wave and backscatter technologies for passenger screening.
  • Air Cargo Imaging: deployment of conventional radiography and explosive trace detection technologies for large-scale screening of inbound air cargo.

Aviation security is not a steady-state business. It changes with the world and the world of flight.

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Dave

About the Author:

David Kipp leads Ross & Baruzzini’s Domestic Aviation and Rail/Transit/Communications market areas. In the course of his 27-year career, he has led complex technology projects across the globe as a project executive and practitioner. Dave is also a respected advisor to many public sector clients, universities, and healthcare systems seeking objective and trusted counsel on information technology, communications, critical operations, wireless, and security issues.

Ross & Baruzzini Relationships & Technology Fuel Opportunities

Posted on by Shanna Evans

At Ross & Baruzzini we pride ourselves on both the relationships we build and on the engineering technology that we bring to the table.

The recent ribbon cutting for the suburban St. Louis Parkway School District’s grant-funded project to build a fueling station and introduce 30 buses operating on compressed natural gas (CNO) into its fleet received local television coverage. But the bigger story lie in the possibilities Parkway represents expanding America’s search for energy independence and greener fuel alternatives.

Ross & Baruzzini’s role in this project came as a result of a long-term relationship. And Parkway looks like it may be just the beginning.

Parkway received a $1.53 million federal highway funding grant to purchase the 30 CNG buses and build a fueling station. The project will save Parkway an estimated $100,000 per year in fuel costs, as well as, reduce the number of emissions emitted into the environment. The total cost of the Parkway program is $4.3 million.

NGFS (Natural Gas Fueling Solutions), the local company that managed the Parkway fueling station project had its beginnings in the construction depression that is just now ending. NGFS, a national company based in St. Peters, was founded in 2011 by principals in the firms of Cissell Mueller Company, LLC, a commercial real estate developer and contractor, and Wiegmann Associates, a mechanical contractor. Ross & Baruzzini has enjoyed a long, successful relationship with Cissell Mueller.

Lead Parkway consultant James Dong of Raymundo Engineering, Inc., a Walnut Creek, CA firm with two decades of experience in alternative fueling station programs, said that the expertise of our team members and the willingness of Parkway’s facilities team to pull the trigger on ordering long-lead items such as compressors enabled the complex project to be completed on a fast track.

While the footprint of the CNG station is small, the project was extraordinarily complex. It is located at the rear of the sprawling Parkway School District site. Requirements for gas separation from overhead power lines precluded slow-fueling operations. A quick-fill station was built with an infrastructure of valves and compressors, and pumps that resemble filling station pumps with snap-fitting pressure hoses instead of gasoline nozzles. Ross & Baruzzini served as the electrical engineer on the Parkway project.

Parkway’s CNG station is emblematic of growing alternative fuel construction opportunities across the country, including in this areas,” Herb Tschannen, CEO of NFGS said. Tschannen said NGFS has been experiencing extremely rapid growth. The company has built CNG and LNG/LCNG (liquefied gas/liquefied compressed natural gas) fueling stations for fleet operations, public fueling centers, and public entities like Parkway, in addition to the fueling stations themselves,

Herb Tschannen said NFGS serves as a consultant on fleet conversions and on the code, safety, and other issues involved in maintenance facilities servicing CNG/LNG vehicles. And NFGS plans to work with Ross & Baruzzini in pursuing these opportunities. “Ross & Baruzzini is our strategic partner for design-build facilities,“  he said.

About the Author:

Bob Wilson is a Senior Project Manager with Ross & Baruzzini and has over 39 years of experience in controls, instrumentation, security, standby generation, and power distribution.  He has served as Project Manager and Lead Engineer on the majority of the utility infrastructure work undertaken by Ross & Baruzzini.