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Anatomy of a Blast: Researchers Develop Sensor System to Assess the Effects of Explosions on Soldiers

By Guest PostMay 12, 2013Technology, Weaponsanatomy, battery life, black box, blast, blast effect, bluetooth connection, brian liu, components of ibess, data, data transfer, douglas woods, effects of explosions, ekg activity, environmental data, georgia tech, green beret, gtri, iac program, ibess, ied explosion, ieds, improvised explosive devices, integrated, joe rozmeski, long term effects, marty broadwell, personal key identifier, pki, rapid equipping force, ref, research institute, rfid signals, sensor suite, sensor system, soldiers, storage, subsystems, survivable events, traumatic brain injury, us armed forces, us military, vehicles in afghanistan

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are becoming a global problem for the U.S. armed forces. To prevent injuries to soldiers and provide better care to those who are injured, the U.S. military is striving to better understand how blasts impact the human body.

In 2011 the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force (REF) approached the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) as part of the DOD Information Analysis Center (IAC) program to develop a system that measures the physical environment of an explosion and collects data that can be used to correlate what the soldier experienced with long-term medical outcomes, especially traumatic brain injury. The solution: the Integrated Blast Effect Sensor Suite (IBESS). IBESS is the first system to acquire integrated, time-tagged data during an explosive event – whether soldiers are on the ground or riding in a vehicle – and can later help recreate a holistic picture of what happened. (more…)

First Independent Review of Provincial-Level Environmental Data in China

By Guest PostDecember 28, 2011Environmentair quality, air quality data, angel hsu, Beijing, biodiversity conservation, China, chinese government, chinese policymakers, chinese provinces, city university of hong kong, climate change, columbia university, davos, douglas kysar, energy efficiency, environmental data, environmental management, environmental performance, environmental performance index, epi, fine particulate matter, greenhouse gas emissions, hazardous air quality, marc levy, methodologies for statistics, pm 2.5, provincial level, second largest economy, toxic metals, toxics exposure, waste management, water quality, world economic forum, yale university

A team of researchers jointly led by Yale University and Columbia University has released a report that introduces a framework for assessing China’s environmental management and performance. This analysis offers the first independent review of Chinese provincial-level environmental performance by international researchers.

The report, “Towards a China Environmental Performance Index,” introduces a model framework for environmental performance indicators to assist the Chinese government in tracking progress toward policy goals, as well as recommendations for how the Chinese government can apply more aggressive performance metrics to environmental decision-making. (more…)

First Study of Dispersants in Gulf Spill Suggests a Prolonged Deepwater Fate

By Guest PostJanuary 29, 2011Environmentbiodegradation, biological exposure, chemical dispersant, chromatographic technique, david valentine, deep ocean, deepwater horizon oil spill, dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, doss, effects on corals, elizabeth b kujawinski, environmental data, fate of dispersants, gas flow, gulf of mexico, gulf spill, hydrocarbon, levels of methane, marshes and coastlines, melissa c kido soule, oil droplets, oil gas plume, toxicity, wellhead

To combat last year’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill, nearly 800,000 gallons of chemical dispersant were injected directly into the oil and gas flow coming out of the wellhead nearly one mile deep in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, as scientists begin to assess how well the strategy worked at breaking up oil droplets, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) chemist Elizabeth B. Kujawinski and her colleagues report that a major component of the dispersant itself was contained within an oil-gas-laden plume in the deep ocean and had still not degraded some three months after it was applied.

While the results suggest the dispersant did mingle with the oil and gas flowing from the mile-deep wellhead, they also raise questions about what impact the deep-water residue of oil and dispersant—which some say has its own toxic effects—might have had on environment and marine life in the Gulf. (more…)

Tag Archives: environmental data

Anatomy of a Blast: Researchers Develop Sensor System to Assess the Effects of Explosions on Soldiers

First Independent Review of Provincial-Level Environmental Data in China

First Study of Dispersants in Gulf Spill Suggests a Prolonged Deepwater Fate