Solutions

Social Innovation in Venice California

Tue, 2011-09-27 10:26 — mdmcdonald

Venice, California has long been a center of innovation within Los Angeles. Its boardwalk is a spectacle of creativity and entrepreneurship in an open community setting, where the LA megalopolis meets the beach and the Pacific Ocean. This combination attracts millions of visitors a year in a very small area.

As a result, Venice -- in addition to its opportunities, also struggles with significant and growing challenges with homelessness, drugs, and crowd control, amongst the other problems that all communities face in an economic downturn within a time of energy descent.

The result? Both the opportunities and the problems now require creative energy from the Venice community itself to shape what Venice wants to be in the early 21st century.

Please place your comments on how Venice community members might think about shaping their community to enhance it during the challenging years ahead.

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US - West

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Jeremy Rifkin: The Third Industrial Revolution: Toward a New Economic Paradigm

Tue, 2011-09-27 09:28 — mdmcdonald

Our industrial civilization is at a crossroads. Oil and the other fossil fuel energies that make up the industrial way of life are sunsetting, and the technologies made from and propelled by these energies are antiquated. The entire industrial infrastructure built off of fossil fuels is aging and in disrepair. The result is that unemployment is rising to dangerous levels all over the world. Governments, businesses and consumers are awash in debt and living standards are plummeting everywhere. A record one billion human beings--nearly one seventh of the human race--face hunger and starvation.

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'Wi-fi Refugees' Shelter in West Virginia Mountains

Wed, 2011-09-14 10:00 — Kathy Gilbeaux

BBC News - September 12, 2011

Nichols Fox lives alone in a home powered primarily by gas just outside the Quiet Zone

Dozens of Americans who claim to have been made ill by wi-fi and mobile phones have flocked to the town of Green Bank, West Virginia

There are five billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide and advances in wireless technology make it increasingly difficult to escape the influence of mobile devices. But while most Americans seem to embrace continuous connectivity, some believe it's making them physically ill.

Diane Schou is unable to hold back the tears as she describes how she once lived in a shielded cage to protect her from the electromagnetic radiation caused by waves from wireless communication.

"It's a horrible thing to have to be a prisoner," she says. "You become a technological leper because you can't be around people.

"It's not that you would be contagious to them - it's what they're carrying that is harmful to you."

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United States

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Communication

Health

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Most Americans Unprepared for Disaster, Survey Finds

Mon, 2011-09-12 19:26 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Homeland Security Newswire - September 12, 2011

Most people still believe help will arrive within hours // Source: hsdl.org

A new survey finds that most Americans are unprepared for major disasters and that they maintain a false sense of security with regard to what will happen if a major disaster or a terrorist attack took place; contrary to reality, almost one-third of respondents believed that during a major disaster, calling 911 would bring help within an hour, while 30 percent said they believed help would come within several hours.

A new survey finds that most Americans are unprepared and maintain a false sense of security during a major disaster or terrorist attack.

The poll, conducted by the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, indicated that more than half of the families surveyed had no emergency plan in place for a major hurricane or earthquake. Even those with plans in place were lacking essential items like a flashlight, two days of food and water, key phone numbers, and extra batteries.

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Electronic Sensors Assess Contact Between Healthcare Workers

Sat, 2011-09-10 16:41 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Luis Kun

Infection Control Today - September 6, 2011

Transmission of hospital acquired infections (HAI) is mainly based on contacts between patients, patients and healthcare workers (HCWs) and between HCWs only. Description and quantification of contacts at hospitals are key pieces of information for epidemiology and implementing control measures for HAIs.

Researchers in France and Italy describe the SocioPatterns project that has developed an technology based on RFID badges that provides a reliable infrastructure to detect face-to-face proximity of individuals. The system was tested at a scientific conference, in a primary school and in a hospital unit.

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Video - BOATLIFT, An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience (Narrated by Tom Hanks)

Sat, 2011-09-10 12:17 — Kathy Gilbeaux

While the towers burned and collapsed on 9/11, a half million people were evacuated from Lower Manhattan by a civilian flotilla of ferries, tug boats and other vessels—the largest boatlift in history. Narrated by Tom Hanks, Produced and Directed by Eddie Rosenstein

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg

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Video - Mobile Phones Without Towers Coming Soon

Sat, 2011-09-03 17:13 — Kathy Gilbeaux

The Sydney Morning Herald - September 1, 2011

A mobile phone communications system that doesn't need towers is being developed at Adelaide's Flinders University.

The Serval Project was inspired by the 2010 Haiti earthquake in which the phone network crashed as infrastructure went down.

Creator Paul Gardner-Stephen said the earthquake showed the lack of resilience in a communications system that relied on infrastructure.

"If the towers are knocked out, mobile phone handsets become useless lumps of plastic in our hands," he said.

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United States

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Communication

Technology

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Solutions

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Improved Response to Disasters and Outbreaks by Tracking Population Movements with Mobile Phone Network Data: A Post-Earthquake Geospatial Study in Haiti

Fri, 2011-09-02 00:44 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Abstract

Background

Population movements following disasters can cause important increases in morbidity and mortality. Without knowledge of the locations of affected people, relief assistance is compromised. No rapid and accurate method exists to track population movements after disasters. We used position data of subscriber identity module (SIM) cards from the largest mobile phone company in Haiti (Digicel) to estimate the magnitude and trends of population movements following the Haiti 2010 earthquake and cholera outbreak.

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Cellphones Could Help Doctors Stay Ahead Of An Epidemic

Fri, 2011-09-02 00:33 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Michael Kraft

by Christopher Joyce - npr.org - August 31, 2011

Two women check their cellphones as they hawk their wares on a bridge over the Artibonite River, whose waters are believed to be the source of Haiti's 2010 cholera outbreak. Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

The year 2010 was a very bad one for Haiti. It started with an earthquake that killed over 300,000 people, mostly in the crowded capital of Port-au-Prince. After that, cholera originating in a U.N. camp broke out in a northern province and eventually spread to the city.

But public health researchers learned something useful from the tragedy: Cellphones can help stem an unfolding epidemic and funnel aid to the needy.

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The Economics of Rapidly Emerging Cities

Wed, 2011-08-31 08:25 — mdmcdonald

As the human populations of our small planet exceeds 7 billion on its way potentially to 9 million or 10 billion by the mid-21st Century, migrations of millions are becoming common place -- some out of desperation, others out of seeking opportunity and a better life. According to a large percentage of climatologists and other scientists that are studying global change, the social ecologies of many large cities will become non-viable for their human populations and many other species due to climate change, the drying up of water supplies, the lose of food sources, natural disasters, wars, and other factors. In other cases, new cities of opportunity or attractive culture will draws those seeking a better life and way of being.

Tens of millions, and perhaps hundreds of millions will be forced to leave their homes in search of more viable communities. Millions more will create new communities with intentionality, exploring new economic, social, and political models that improve health, human security, resilience and sustainability for the new citizens. In some cases, simple shared principles will shape new, fast growing economies, and, in other cases, rules and conditions will be imposed on inhabitants of new communities and cities.

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