A Binghamton University computer scientist with an interest in "green" software development has received recognition for a new approach regarding energy consumption by computer software. 'New' ways of writing code could enable more efficient energy consumption by computers.

Computers and electronic devices, ranging from smartphones to servers, consume a steadily growing amount of energy. In recent years, computer scientists have developed an interest in paring back this consumption, though generally they've approached the challenge through modifying hardware or perhaps operating systems. Liu plans to tackle the problem by considering how programmers can create more energy-efficient software.

"Saving energy is an activity that should come from many layers," said Liu, who plans to build energy-related parameters into a programming language.

A change at that level would permit and encourage programmers to express their energy-saving intentions directly when software is developed.

"Saving energy is often a trade-off," Liu said. "Sometimes you're willing to run your program slower so your cell phone battery can last longer."

For such settings — often specific to the nature of the applications — no automated algorithms know as much as programmers. "Programs today are not just 50 lines of code," Liu said.

They have often grown to be thousands or even millions of lines long. He hopes to employ advanced programming language technologies known as "type systems" to answer questions such as

"What is the energy-consumption pattern of a large program, given the consumption patterns of its fragments?" and "Do programmers have conflicted views of the energy-consumption patterns of their software?"

Energy-efficient solutions at the level of programming languages also enjoy a high degree of platform independence, meaning they can have an impact all along the spectrum from phones to servers.

"In an era when new platforms are introduced every year," Liu explained, "an approach that's platform-independent would be beneficial because it can be applied more broadly."

None of the mainstream computer languages supports energy-aware programming, he said. However, language designers often create a blueprint that can be extended. Java, for instance, could be extended as EnergyJava and remain 90 percent the same. Such moderate changes would make it possible for programmers to adopt it relatively easily.

There isn't much history in this area, Liu said, so it's hard to say how quickly industry will react to the development of an energy-efficient language. However, new language designs have the potential to influence how millions of programmers think.

"I think every researcher wants to make the world better, and we just put it into our own perspective," he said. "Sometime in the Computer future, every Science 101 class may include a lecture or two on energy-aware programming. As an educator, I'm excited about helping to ensure that next-generation programmers are green-conscious from the beginning of their careers."

Source: physorg

Provided by Binghamton University

Turismo Associati note: THIS ARTICLE FROM THE ENGLISH NEWSPAPER THE GUARDIAN is dated: Thursday 10 February 2011 15.22 GMT. THIS COULD EXPLAIN THE CONNECTION WITH WHAT HAPPENED IN MAY 2011 TO Mr. STRAUSS-KAHN... 

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, has called for a new world currency that would challenge the dominance of the dollar and help curb future financial instability.

In a speech in Washington, Strauss-Kahn argued that the reserves that member countries held with the fund could be used, instead of the dollar, to price international trade. These so-called special drawing rights (SDRs) could also act as an alternative to the dollar in central banks' foreign currency reserves.

"Using the SDR to price global trade and denominate financial assets would provide a buffer from exchange rate volatility," he said, while "issuing SDR-denominated bonds could create a potentially new class of reserve assets".

The IMF published a policy paper backing Strauss-Kahn's views as it gathered top-level economists for discussions on the future of the international monetary system.

Strauss-Kahn, who has been tipped as a contender for the French presidency next year, also argued that the way SDRs were valued, which is currently based on a basket of currencies – the dollar, sterling, the euro and the yen – be broadened to include others such as the Chinese yuan.

International policymakers have become increasingly concerned about the threat of currency wars as struggling governments try to hold down their own exchange rates as they clamber out of recession.

Strauss-Kahn admitted that there were formidable hurdles to achieving a greater role for SDRs, but he warned that without urgent action, the simmering conflicts in the international financial system could tip the world back into chaos.

"Global imbalances are back, with issues that worried us before the crisis—large and volatile capital flows, exchange-rate pressures, rapidly growing excess reserves – on the front-burner once again. Left unresolved, these problems could even sow the seeds of the next crisis," he said.

China, which holds much of its $2.85 trillion mountain of reserves in US Treasury bonds, has repeatedly expressed unease about the value of the dollar, while American politicians have complained that Beijing gains an unfair advantage by keeping its own currency cheap.

The idea of SDRs emerged in 1969, to support the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system, but when that collapsed a few years later, the role of SDRs was largely forgotten. They allow IMF members the right to swap their own reserves for foreign currencies in times of need.

However, at the London G20 meeting in 2009, in the midst of the credit crunch, world leaders agreed a dramatic $250bn boost to SDRs, sparking speculation that they could play a growing role in the global monetary system.

Strauss-Kahn said the IMF was also examining ways of strengthening international policy co-ordination, and monitoring international imbalances.

Author: Heather Stewart; Source: guardian.co.uk

Issues Covered:

1) TZM Global Radio Show, Wed. May 25th 2011
2) The Zeitgeist Media Festival, Global/Main Event (Sept 9th - 11th 2011)
3) TZM Regional, Monthly "TownHalls", Global.

***

1) TZM GLOBAL RADIO:

This Wed. May 18th at 4pm EDT Tom Williams of TZM UK will host The Zeitgeist Movement's Global Radio show.

www.blogtalkradio.com/zmglobal

www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=438&Itemid=1904&lang=en

About: ZM Global Radio is a weekly radio show presented by various active coordinators of The Zeitgeist Movement in a rotational fashion. These broadcasts discuss the developments and aims of The Zeitgeist Movement.

2) THE ZEITGEIST MEDIA FESTIVAL:
(Sept 9th - 11th, 2011)

zeitgeistmediafestival.org/

Recognizing this power of Art to help change the world, “The Zeitgeist Media Festival” is an extension of The Zeitgeist Movement’s “Media Project”, which is currently an emerging, experimental online platform for socially conscious artistic expressions.

This event is modeled after our more intellectually oriented annual event day - “Zeitgeist Day” (www.zdayglobal.org/) - which has occurred for the past 3 years with 10s of thousands of participants in over 70 countries each year.

The Zeitgeist Media Festival is also partnering with local Food Drives globally to help the many homeless and suffering people in the world today.

-MORE INFO:
zeitgeistmediafestival.org/site/index-1.html

-SUBMISSIONS:
zeitgeistmediafestival.org/site/index-3.html

-LA MAIN EVENT:
Tickets for the Los Angeles, CA Featured Event will go on sale in late May. This non-profit event is an 8 hour long multi-media experssion featured a spectrum of socially conscious art. Confirmed commitments include Lili Haydn, The Lions, Natacha Atlas, Norton Wisdom, Master 0, Rick Overton and many others both local and national. Peter Joseph will also be performing abstracts of the Zeitgeist Film Series Score live.

zeitgeistmediafestival.org/site/index-2.html

3) TZM TOWNHALL MEETING, MONTHLY:

The Zeitgeist Movement's is now launching regional monthly Townhall Meetings. These are live, public events conducted by Official Regional ZM Chapters. These localized events are similar in function to our annual global "Zeitgeist Day" events but ideally occur monthly, rather than annually. Modeled after patterns proven effective by civil right's movements historically, the goal is to inform the public of TZM's understandings and goals and hence grow awareness and membership.

More:
www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=650&Itemid=100152&lang=en

~ZM

"It's an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat," Obama said Friday after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

With Obama in France, the White House said the president used an autopen machine that holds a pen and signs his actual signature. It is only used with proper authorization of the president.

Congress sent the bill to the president with only hours to go on Thursday before the provisions expired at midnight. Votes taken in rapid succession in the Senate and House came after lawmakers rejected attempts to temper the law enforcement powers to ensure that individual liberties are not abused.

The Senate voted 72-23 for the legislation to renew three terrorism-fighting authorities. The House passed the measure 250-153 on an evening vote.

A short-term expiration would not have interrupted ongoing operations but would have barred the government from seeking warrants for new investigations.

Congress bumped up against the deadline mainly because of the stubborn resistance from a single senator, Republican freshman Rand Paul of Kentucky, who saw the terrorist-hunting powers as an abuse of privacy rights. Paul held up the final vote for several days while he demanded a chance to change the bill to diminish the government's ability to monitor individual actions.

The measure would add four years to the legal life of roving wiretaps, authorized for a person rather than a communications line or device; court-ordered searches of business records; and surveillance of non-American "lone wolf" suspects without confirmed ties to terrorist groups.

The roving wiretaps and access to business records are small parts of the USA Patriot Act enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But unlike most of the act, which is permanent law, those provisions must be renewed periodically because of concerns that they could be used to violate privacy rights. The same applies to the "lone wolf" provision, which was part of a 2004 intelligence law.

Paul argued that in the rush to meet the terrorist threat in 2001 Congress enacted a Patriot Act that tramples on individual liberties. He had some backing from liberal Democrats and civil liberties groups who have long contended the law gives the government authority to spy on innocent citizens.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he voted for the act in 2001 "while ground zero was still burning." But "I soon realized it gave too much power to government without enough judicial and congressional oversight."
Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said the provision on collecting business records can expose law-abiding citizens to government scrutiny. "If we cannot limit investigations to terrorism or other nefarious activities, where do they end?" he asked.

"The Patriot Act has been used improperly again and again by law enforcement to invade Americans' privacy and violate their constitutional rights," said Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington legislative office.

Still, coming just a month after intelligence and military forces tracked down and killed Osama bin Laden, there was little appetite for tampering with the terrorism-fighting tools. These tools, said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, "have kept us safe for nearly a decade and Americans today should be relieved and reassured to know that these programs will continue."

Intelligence officials have denied improper use of surveillance tools, and this week both FBI Director Robert Mueller and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper sent letters to congressional leaders warning of serious national security consequences if the provisions were allowed to lapse.

The Obama administration says that without the three authorities the FBI might not be able to obtain information on terrorist plotting inside the U.S. and that a terrorist who communicates using different cell phones and email accounts could escape timely surveillance.

"When the clock strikes midnight tomorrow, we would be giving terrorists the opportunity to plot attacks against our country, undetected," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor Wednesday. In unusually personal criticism of a fellow senator, he warned that Paul, by blocking swift passage of the bill, "is threatening to take away the best tools we have for stopping them."

The nation itself is divided over the Patriot Act, as reflected in a Pew Research Center poll last February, before the killing of bin Laden, that found that 34 percent felt the law "goes too far and poses a threat to civil liberties. Some 42 percent considered it "a necessary tool that helps the government find terrorists." That was a slight turnaround from 2004 when 39 percent thought it went too far and 33 percent said it was necessary.

Paul, after complaining that Reid's remarks were "personally insulting," asked whether the nation "should have some rules that say before they come into your house, before they go into your banking records, that a judge should be asked for permission, that there should be judicial review? Do we want a lawless land?"

Paul agreed to let the bill go forward after he was given a vote on two amendments to rein in government surveillance powers. Both were soundly defeated. The more controversial, an amendment that would have restricted powers to obtain gun records in terrorist investigations, was defeated 85-10 after lawmakers received a letter from the National Rifle Association stating that it was not taking a position on the measure.

According to a senior Justice Department national security official testifying to Congress last March, the government has sought roving wiretap authority in about 20 cases a year between 2001 and 2010 and has sought warrants for business records less than 40 times a year, on average. The government has yet to use the lone wolf authority.

But the ACLU also points out that court approvals for business record access jumped from 21 in 2009 to 96 last year, and the organization contends the Patriot Act has blurred the line between investigations of actual terrorists and those not suspected of doing anything wrong.

Two Democratic critics of the Patriot Act, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Udall of Colorado, on Thursday extracted a promise from Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that she would hold hearings with intelligence and law enforcement officials on how the law is being carried out.

Wyden says that while there are numerous interpretations of how the Patriot Act works, the official government interpretation of the law remains classified. "A significant gap has developed now between what the public thinks the law says and what the government secretly claims it says," Wyden said.

Author: JIM ABRAMS - Associated Press writers Laurie Kellman and Pete Yost contributed to this report.

SpaceX, the American space transport company founded by PayPal and Tesla Motors co-founder Elon Musk, has announced a late 2013 or 2014 launch date for the world's most powerful rocket, the Falcon Heavy. Overshadowed by only the Saturn V moon rocket that was decommissioned after the Apollo program, the Falcon Heavy will be able to carry payloads of 53 metric tons (117,000 pounds or 53,070 kg) into orbit, which is more than the maximum take-off weight of a Boeing 737-200 loaded with 136 passengers, luggage and fuel.

The first of the Falcon Heavy's two stages is made up of three nine-engine cores that are used as the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket. For the Falcon Heavy, the Merlin engines have been upgraded and are currently being tested at SpaceX's development facility in McGregor, Texas. Like a commercial airliner, each engine is surrounded by a protective shell to contain a fire or chamber rupture and prevent it from affecting other engines or the vehicle itself.

At liftoff the 69.2m (227 ft) long Falcon Heavy will generate 3.8 million pounds of thrust, which is equivalent to the thrust of fifteen Boeing 747's taking off at the same time. SpaceX says this gives it more than twice the performance of the next most powerful vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy operated by the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance. SpaceX also says that with more than twice the payload of the Delta IV but at one third the cost, the Falcon Heavy sets a new world record in terms of economy at approximately US$1,000 per pound to orbit.

"Falcon Heavy will carry more payload to orbit or escape velocity than any vehicle in history, apart from the Saturn V moon rocket, which was decommissioned after the Apollo program. This opens a new world of capability for both government and commercial space missions," said Musk.

To achieve performance comparable to a three-stage rocket the Falcon Heavy will be the first rocket in history to do a propellant cross-feed from the side boosters to the center core, which leaves the center core with most of its propellant after the side boosters separate. Crossfeed can also be turned off when it is not required, such as for missions below 100,000 pounds (45,359 kg).

Source: GizMag

Economic problems may be fuelling a rise in depression in England, it has been suggested. Prescriptions for anti-depressant drugs such as Prozac rose by more than 40% over the past four years, data obtained by the BBC shows. GPs and charities said they were being contacted increasingly by people struggling with debt and job worries. They said financial woe could often act as a "trigger", but added other factors may also be playing a role in the rise.

The rise has happened at a time when the government has been increasing access to talking therapies, which should in theory curb the demand for anti-depressants. In the last year alone referrals for talking therapies rose four-fold to nearly 600,000, Department of Health figures showed.

'Toxic combination'

Dr Clare Gerada, head of the Royal College of GPs, said some of the rise in prescribing was also likely to be due to increased awareness about the condition and doctors getting better at diagnosis.

But she added: "Of course, in times of economic problems we would expect mental health problems to worsen - and GPs are seeing more people coming in with debts racking up, or who have lost their job and are cancelling their holidays.

"They feel guilty that they can't provide for their family and these things can often act as a trigger for depression."

Mental health charity Sane also said it had seen more people contacting its e-mail and phone advice lines with money worries. Its chief executive, Marjorie Wallace, said: "It is impossible to say for sure that economic problems are leading to a rise in depression. But we are certainly hearing more from people who are worried where the next meal is coming from, job security and cuts in benefits - many who are getting in touch with us for the first time.

"It is a toxic combination, especially for those who already have darker thoughts and other problems."

Emer O'Neill, chief executive of the charity Depression Alliance UK, said: "There is an increase in the number of people suffering from depression certainly, and the economic downturn has had an impact on that. "But I think what's happened is that a lot of the stigma has lifted on depression," she told BBC Breakfast. "It's OK to say you have depression now - and people in general are getting much better information about what it is and they are coming forward and talking to GPs more about it."

Staying on drugs

The figures, obtained from NHS Prescription Services under the Freedom of Information Act, cover anti-depressant prescribing from 2006 to 2010, during which time the country had to cope with the banking crisis, recession and the start of the spending cuts.

They showed the number of prescriptions for selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, the most commonly prescribed group of anti-depressants, rose by 43% to nearly 23 million a year.

The data also showed increases in other types of anti-depressants, including drugs such as Duloxetine which tends to be used for more serious cases.

As well as increasing demand for help, the rise could also be related to patients staying on the drugs for longer.

Care services minister Paul Burstow said: "The last recession has left many people facing tough times. If people do experience mental health problems, the NHS is well placed to help.

"We're boosting funding for talking therapies by £400m over the next four years. This will ensure that modern, evidence-based therapies are available to all who need them, whether their depression or anxiety are caused by economic worries or anything else."

Source: BBC

Researchers at Wake Forest University have developed a new type of polymer solar-thermal device that combines photovoltaics with a system that captures the Sun's infrared radiation to generate heating. By taking advantage of both heat and light, researchers say the device could deliver up to 40 percent savings on the cost of heating, as well as helping reduce power bills by producing electricity.

The hybrid cell is designed with an integrated array of clear tubes, five millimeters (approx 1/4 inch) in diameter. Lying flat, visible sunlight shines into the clear tube which is filled with an oil blended with a proprietary dye, heating the oil which then flows into a heat pump to transfer the warmth inside a home.

Electrical current is produced via a polymer photovoltaic sprayed onto the back of the tubes.

The result is a solar-thermal device with an impressive 30 percent conversion efficiency.

In comparison to flat solar cells, the tube design also has the advantage of being able to capture light at oblique angles, so it can accumulate power for a much longer stretch in the day and be more readily integrated into building materials – it could be produced to resemble a roofing tile for example.

The research team aims to produce a 3 foot square solar thermal cell over the coming months, a key step in bringing the technology closer to market.

"It's a systems approach to making your home ultra-efficient because the device collects both solar energy and heat," said David Carroll, Ph.D., director of the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials at Wake Forest University. "Our solar-thermal device takes better advantage of the broad range of power delivered from the sun each day."

Source: Gizmag

On the screen behind Boagiu, slides showed a succession of maps with yet-to-be-built motorways, ring roads and bypasses. There were ambitious new national roads, upgraded railway lines, train stations, ports and airports. The conference room's 21st-floor windows gave onto a breathtaking view of the capital. Block after block, mile after mile was clogged with traffic.

"My task," she told the investors, eying them from behind rimless eye glasses, "is to recover delays in infrastructure."

The gaps Boagiu must fill are huge -- and common in scores of developing countries from eastern Europe to Africa to Asia. But Romania's story also exposes another issue, one which goes to the heart of the European project.

The country, which shook off communism in 1989 and joined the European Union in 2007, has a potential 4.6 billion euros (4 billion pounds) in EU funding for transport infrastructure, available until 2013. By the end of last year, Bucharest had managed to use just 47 million euros of that. If Boagiu can't find a way to speed up projects and use the funds, the country will lose them.

Like countries suddenly enriched by the discovery of oil, former communist states that have access to billions in European Union development funds can find them both blessing and curse. The funds -- some 160 billion euros between 2007 and 2013 across the former eastern bloc -- are meant to help new members catch up with the rest of the EU.

But what if a country like Romania simply can't absorb that cash? Should it concentrate on fixing its government services and institutions - its software, as it were -- before it can move to fancy new hardware like motorways? Is it possible to graft developed-world standards onto states whose institutions are running years behind those of the donors?

"Public investment spending is not small," Romania's central bank Governor Mugur Isarescu told a news conference last October. "But there are 42,000 unfinished investment projects in Romania. This is not efficient. We are the country of unfinished projects."

EXIT RAMP

Romania's massive infrastructure deficit dates back more than 20 years, to when the country was in the grip of Nicolae Ceausescu, one of Communism's most repressive dictators. In the 1980s, Ceausescu backed an export-led drive to clear Romania of billions of dollars in foreign debt, slashing investment to pay off creditors. That left infrastructure lagging behind even Romania's Balkan neighbours -- countries which historically had been much poorer.

According to a global competitiveness report by the World Economic Forum, Romania ranks just 134th out of 139 countries by the quality of its roads. The WEF says transport infrastructure is still one of the chief reasons hampering investment. The country is the EU's ninth-largest member by land area, but has only 331 km (211 miles) of motorway, less than half that of neighbouring Hungary (925 km) and not even three percent of Germany's 12,813 km.

Go for a drive in Romania (population 22 million) and you can bump for hours over gravel country roads to reach villages -- some without electricity, indoor plumbing or running water -- whose schools have closed because the young have moved away for a better life. Dusty national roads lead past lush farmland which is failing to achieve its potential because machinery is outdated and land ownership fragmented. Cities are choked with traffic because there's no way to drive round them. The rail system is no better. Outdated trains travel at an average 45 km per hour, while elsewhere in Europe the top speed can hit 320 km/hour.

When mobile phone maker Nokia announced it was moving a production plant to Romania from Germany in 2008, horses and carts still travelled the road to the new site. That same year Daimler chose Hungary over Romania or Poland as the site of a new 800 million-euro car factory with about 2,500 jobs. Hungary, which has higher labour costs and tax rates than Romania, credited the win to its dense network of motorways.

With a cheap and skilled labour force and attractive flat tax on income and profit, Romania has attracted investment by carmakers Renault and Ford. But even they have complained about the roads. "When it bought the plant, Ford wanted to build 1,000 cars a day and ... that would bring a lot of money and jobs to Romania," U.S. ambassador Mark Gitenstein told a Romanian television station in April. "But unless there is a motorway ... it will not make 1,000 cars a day or hire so many people. You need motorways."

None of Romania' existing motorways connect the country with its neighbours. It's a closed system. Even ambitious projects like the Transylvania Motorway have so far failed to live up to their promise.

TRANSYLVANIA MOTORWAY

U.S. construction group Bechtel broke official ground on Romania's biggest motorway at a site near the 15th-century Transylvanian village of Valisoara on a mild summer day in 2004. Then prime minister Adrian Nastase cut ceremonial ribbons and excavators bit into the ground to the soundtrack of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons."

On that day, the future seemed almost tangible: there would be a smooth, spacious four-lane motorway, 415 km long with more than 300 bridges, 70 overpasses and 19 interchanges, connecting the central Romanian region of Transylvania to Hungary. The road would bring jobs, tourists and foreign investors.

"A motorway is forever," Michael Mix, Bechtel's then project manager said in a 2007 company brief. "It is a legacy."

Seven years since the project began, a little more than 10 percent of the road has been delivered. The state has paid Bechtel more than 1 billion euros of public money and analysts say the project will end up costing at least double the initial estimate of 2.2 billion euros. The deadline has been pushed back a year to 2013, but could end up taking years longer.

Rather than being forever, "it feels as if this motorway may take forever," quipped Ana Otilia Nutu, an infrastructure expert at Romanian Academic Society, a think tank.

Infrastructure projects and overruns go hand in hand the world over. But a 2010 study by JASPERS, a European Union agency that helps eastern European states prepare projects eligible for EU cash, found cost overruns were more likely in Romania than in eight other central and eastern European states included in the study, largely due to weak public administration.

Even by Romanian standards, the Bechtel example is extreme. In the years since the groundbreaking, government inquiries have found the deal disadvantaged Bucharest from the start. The project was granted to Bechtel without a public tender, despite clear legislation demanding transparency. This angered international bodies including the European Union, which said it wouldn't support it, leaving the financing burden to the state.

At the time of the initial deal, Nastase said Romania could not afford to navigate a lengthy tender process if it wanted to catch up with affluent western European states. He lost power in late 2004, and a new centre-right coalition government put motorway works on hold while it renegotiated.

Those talks, which lasted for eight months, showed how the initial contract was bad for Romania. The deal committed the country to giving Bechtel an interest-free loan of 250 million euros, on top of monthly payments for works. It made it virtually impossible under Romanian law to pursue compensation if Bechtel failed to meet its obligations. It left Bechtel in charge of controlling costs, giving it a free hand to decide the route. It even contained translation errors unfavourable to Romania, the transport ministry said in 2005.

A revised contract cut 126 million euros off the overall price. It scrapped the interest-free loan, and the government took over road design -- which gave it more control over costs. At the same time, most of the terms were made public.

Source: Reuters

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are launching a powerful new tool for sorting through and mapping all of California’s fatal and serious traffic collisions.

Starting today (Wednesday, April 6), anyone with access to the Internet can register for a free account to access the Transportation Injury Mapping System, or TIMS, to perform customized searches of 130,000 serious and fatal crashes in the state. Users can view the history of crashes from 2000 to 2008, the most recent year data are available, by county, city, neighborhood or along specific routes. Additional years of collision data will be incorporated into TIMS as they become available.

“This tool is meant to provide professionals and the general public with data to identify traffic safety problems and potential solutions,” said John Bigham, lead researcher for the TIMS project and the Geographic Information Systems program manager at UC Berkeley’s Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC). The center is based at the School of Public Health and the Institute of Transportation Studies.

The UC Berkeley researchers had a wealth of data from which to work. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) collects data on all reported crashes – including collisions on local roads as well as on state highways – and records the information in the California Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System. This database formed the foundation for the records in the TIMS project.

“I don’t know of any other state that allows the general public to access crash data in this way,” said Bigham.

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), whose Fatality Analysis Reporting System database was also used for TIMS.

While state and local records of crash data are publicly available through the CHP, there had previously been no easy way for users to interactively sort through the information and map it by such factors as location, time and date of the collision; weather and road conditions; the influence of alcohol; and whether pedestrians or bicyclists were involved.

SafeTREC researchers set out to “geocode” the crash data by developing a process to add coordinates to each collision that involved a fatality or injury requiring hospitalization. They then created a web-based data query system that allows users to not only conduct searches and download the results, but to also visualize the results using Google Maps and ArcGIS Server, a mapping software from the Environmental Systems Research Institute. When users click on a location, pop-up boxes provide information about the collision, and the street view feature gives users a realistic picture of the collision site.

Other common data sources, such as census tract information, school locations and zip code boundaries, can be displayed on the maps. Users also have the ability to select collisions on the map and download the associated data files. Video tutorials and FAQs are available to help guide new users through the site.

“Actually seeing the crashes on a map is a tool in its own right,” said Bigham. “If a picture is worth a thousand words, a map is worth a thousand rows in a spreadsheet.”

According to NHTSA, motor vehicle collisions are the leading cause of death for people ages 3 to 34 in the United States. In California, records show that in 2008, more than 3,400 people were killed and more than 240,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes. Those statistics include collisions with pedestrians and bicyclists. The California Department of Transportation estimates that traffic collisions cost $25 billion in economic damages to the state in a single year.

TIMS, which has been used by members of state agencies for beta testing over the past few months, will be of particular use to Caltrans, CHP and other agencies to better analyze crash data and focus their efforts to reduce traffic fatalities and injuries, the researchers said.

“TIMS represents a major breakthrough in California’s already strong record in road safety.” said David Ragland, director of SafeTREC and adjunct professor of epidemiology at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. “In the past several years, due to the effort and resources expended by several state agencies, deaths and injuries from traffic crashes have shown significant declines. TIMS will help build on this success by making it easier for our public agencies –and anyone with access to the Internet –to actually see the locations and types of crashes occurring on our state’s roads, to identify clusters of crashes and to help determine causal factors that can be modified.”

The researchers eventually plan to improve upon the TIMS website with the addition of data on minor injury collisions and more options for queries and spatial analysis of collisions. They emphasized that to truly evaluate the safety of a site, factors such as the relative volume of vehicle, pedestrian and bicycle traffic must be considered.

“The tools on this website allow you to simplify the first steps in exploring crash data, but these other elements need to be considered to get the full picture,” said Bigham. “In the future, we hope to provide more focused applications that incorporate many of these elements to provide an even stronger tool for crash analysis.”

Source: physorg

More information: www.tims.berkeley.edu/

Provided by University of California - Berkeley for ZeitNews.org